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Vanaja is a simple and sometimes lovely Telugu film, shot on a shoestring budget by a debutant director. Though rough around the edges, it has a few moments of sparkle that make it well worth seeing.
In a fishing village in Andhra Pradesh, fifteen-year-old Vanaja (Mamatha Bhukya) goes to school, giggles with her friends, and looks after her father. After her father's hard luck and drunkenness leaves him deeply in debt, Vanaja takes work in the household of the local landowner, Rama Devi (Urmila Dammannagari). Rama Devi was, in her youth, the region's premier performer of traditional Kuchipudi dance, and Vanaja boldly and stubbornly prevails upon Rama Devi to teach her. She proves reasonably talented, and she, Rama Devi, and Rama Devi's other servant, the elderly Radhamma (Krishnamma Gundimalla) fall into a happy routine for a while. The balance is upset with the return from America of Rama Devi's strapping son Shekhar (Karan Singh), who, Rama Devi plans, will stand in a local election. Shekhar is attracted to Vanaja, and Vanaja is fascinated by him. But when a chain of events makes Shekhar resentful and suspicious of Vanaja, he takes decisive action that irreparably changes her life.
Vanaja's director, Rajnesh Domalpalli, cast Andhra Pradesh villagers rather than professional actors in his film. The effect is both the film's charm and its weakness. The characters' raw authenticity and unpracticed emotions are engaging. At the same time, though, the young Mamatha Bhukya is not quite up to the task of portraying Vanaja's shifting and confused motives, with the result that even her boldest actions sometimes feel detached or unmotivated. Still, the film is often charming, and its best moments are driven by Urmila Dammannagari's performance as Rama Devi - she, though as amateur an actor as Mamatha Bhukya, is a mature woman, and seems able to draw on her lifetime of experience to make Rama Devi salty, sweet, stern, and soft, all in a delicate balance.
Indeed, the relationship between Rama Devi and Vanaja is the most compelling facet of the film. It operates on many levels: master-servant, guru-pupil, and even mother-daughter - Vanaja's mother, we learn, died when she was very young, and Rama Devi appears to have no daughter of her own. Sparks fly most when these disparate levels intersect, and Rama Devi is challenged by the clash of the proprieties of a high-caste landowner and the tenderness she feels for the girl. The growth of the relationship between Vanaja and Radhamma, the elder servant in Rama Devi's household, also traverses a touching arc. The result is that while Vanaja is in some ways a film about the gulf that separates high and low castes, it is even more than that a film about how the bonds between women, and the timeless universality of women's experiences, transcend those societal divides.
The other delight of Vanaja is Vanaja's dancing. As her lessons begin she is awkward and unsteady on her feet; she develops in grace and expressiveness as the film progresses, and her performances are a lovely counterpoint to the bleaker turns taken by the storyline. Vanaja tries on many different roles as she feels her way through her traumatic adolescence - child, woman, seductress, mother - but the devotional roles she plays in traditional dance seem a respite for her from the painful complexity of her daily life.
पहेली
This adaptation of a Rajasthani folk tale is sparkling, lush, and thoroughly engaging. Its resolution may not be palatable to all - but Amol Palekar's Paheli ("riddle") is a folk tale, not a morality tale.
On the day of her marriage, Lachchi (Rani Mukherjee) is sorrowful at leaving her family, but she puts on a brave face and travels to her new husband's home. That night, she finds Kishen (Shah Rukh Khan) more interested in balancing his accounts than in completing their marriage. When she presses him on the subject, he tells her that he is leaving the next morning for a five year business trip at the request of his father (Anupam Kher), an avaricious merchant. Why ignite passion, he asks, only to suppress it for so long? Lachchi is spotted, however, by a restless bhoot (ghost) who falls madly in love with her, and when he gets wind of Kishen's departure, he transforms himself into Kishen's form and convinces the family that he has returned. He cannot bring himself to deceive Lachchi, though, and reveals himself immediately, giving her the opportunity to banish him if she wishes. Lachchi chooses the ghost's love and companionship, and the two enjoy a blissful and passionate union. Trouble awaits them, of course, when the real Kishen returns.
The story has an edge, and perhaps uncomfortable implications. It is very appealing that Lachchi gets a choice; this kind of empowerment of women, in particular when it comes to sexual autonomy, is still rare in the movies (and not just Hindi movies), and I have to suppress an impulse to cheer when a woman in a film makes a bold decision that, for once, isn't self-sacrifice and martyrdom. And it's especially satisfying to see a movie in which a woman can make such a choice and not pay for it, literally or figuratively, with her life. Still, Paheli does make someone pay for Lachchi's extended frolic with the bhoot - the innocent Kishen, whose only crime is being somewhat haplessly under the thumb of his domineering father. Lachchi and the bhoot's love is steamy, romantic, and appealing, but it's far from a victimless crime. As I said, Paheli is not a morality tale; it's a spook story, dressed in beautiful clothes.
Implications aside, Paheli is a wonderful movie to watch. For one thing, it is an absolutely gorgeous visual feast. The rich colors of the Rajasthani desert shimmer and dance in the desert backdrop, the luxurious interior scenes, and the silken costumes. It is lushness done right; I can't help contrast Devdas, with visual excess that weighed down the film and amplified everything that was overwrought and affected to an intolerable degree. In Paheli, the sumptuousness enhanced the fairy-tale feel, transporting the story to an unspecified time and place. The saturated colors and rich sparkle perfectly suited the magical elements of the story.
Paheli is also a showcase for one - two, actually - of Shah Rukh Khan's best performances. I am no great fan of his, and it was a nice treat here to enjoy a film because of, rather than despite, his work in it. He distinguishes Kishen from the bhoot with a real physicality, making each character appealing in his own way (neither one is the arrogant hero characer with which he made himself a superstar), yet still keeping within the broad style of the film. Rani Mukherjee's performance is unremarkable but more than adequate to the task; I like her, so I enjoyed it completely, especially in the film's beautiful, folk-tinged songs. Anupam Kher is very funny as always as Kishen's miserly father, in the kind of comic role he can do in his sleep. A hysterical cameo by Amitabh Bachchan (and an unusual one by Naseeruddin Shah) add to the film's grandness. The sum is a film that I just loved, much to my surprise, and expect to watch again and again.
(ETA: There is an outstanding discussion of the implications of Paheli's ending to be found on the BollyWHAT? discussion forums, beginning here.)
एक डाक्टर की मौत
Some people dismiss Indian art films as ponderous and boring. I'm usually an enthusiastic cheerleader for art cinema - the more variety of films available the better. If I wanted to convince a mainstream film-lover that art films weren't ponderous, though, Ek doctor ki maut ("Death of a doctor") would not be the place to start. This tale of a maverick scientist going up against the establishment just falls flat.
Dipankar Roy (Pankaj Kapur) is a physician who practices in a government hospital. He's not that interested in clinical medicine, though - his passion is his research on a vaccine for leprosy. He works into the wee hours - to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife Seema (Shabana Azmi) - in a tiny makeshift lab in his home. Huddled amongst the caged lab animals, dusty reference volumes, and burbling beakers, Roy toils away night after night, his work punctuated by verbal sparring matches with Seema. One day he has a breakthrough - he has discovered that females inoculated with his compound give birth to offspring immune to leprosy, and what's more, the compound has a secondary effect of reversing certain kinds of sterility in females. His results are published by an eager science reporter (Irrfan Khan), but the reception in the scientific community is chillier than Roy anticipated. Specialists in leprosy are skeptical of his findings, and gynecologists are incensed by his speculation that the compound may treat sterility. Instead of getting a fair hearing for his work, Roy is shut down by his superiors in the health ministry, cut off from his work, forbidden to share it with the international medical community, and transferred to a remote village.
That sounds like a pretty good story, and having summarized it just now I am struggling to understand why the film in execution is so gratingly dull. Part of the problem lies in script and direction. The film is shot in a hyper-realistic, hyper-literal style; there is no artistic camera work, no symbolism, nothing to layer the dialogue or add depth or allegory to the events unfolding on the screen. It is more like reading a newspaper article than watching a piece of cinematic art. And, like a newspaper article, Ek doctor ki maut presents its events in words - Roy explains his results to his friends; Seema orates her frustrations with her marriage, puts her threat to leave Roy in a letter, and then expounds, in words, on why she decides to stay. All the verbiage smothers the lovely, subtle performances of both Pankaj Kapur and Shabana Azmi, the latter especially; she seems to want to show Seema's conflict in body language in the kind of performance that she can give better than anyone, but the script won't let her stop talking long enough to do it.
Stylistic matters aside, as a former scientist, I was nonplussed by the film's treatment of the process of scientific discovery and review. In the U.S., when scientists choose to present their work via the press rather than in a peer-reviewed publication, they frequently meet with a skeptical response - not without reason, as illustrated by Fleischmann and Pons's now infamous announcement of cold fusion. So I don't perceive any great injustice in the response in the medical community's circumspect reaction to Roy's self-published results. This leaves me somewhat at a loss to interpret the message of Ek doctor ki maut. Perhaps the practice of scientific research is different in India from my own experience, so that in the film's context it's clearer just what is being criticized. To my eye, though, other researchers are justified in viewing Roy with some suspicion; he appears to be more eccentric than not, puttering in a makeshift homemade laboratory, forgoing peer review, and lashing out in anger at any who dare challenge him.
Ek doctor ki maut is not all bad; I've mentioned the delicacy of the actors' performances, and there were a few excellent moments shining in the film's bland substrate. In one excellent sequence, Roy steals Seema's sterno cooker out from under her when he runs out of propane for his Bunsen burner; later, he predictably scolds her for failing to cook his dinner, and the skirmish is a poignant microcosm of their entire relationship. And in the closest thing to a character arc there is in the film, Roy later demonstrates a growing awareness of his reliance on Seema and her need for some reciprocation. This is best shown in several tender interactions between them, one during her visit after his exile to village practice, and another in the film's final scene. If the rest of the film had been handled as delicately, Ek doctor ki maut might have felt less like two hours of squandered potential.
(Ek doctor ki maut is available for download at Jaman. Also please see this post at Sounds Like Power for a more Shabana-centric look at the film.)
मुन्नाभाई M.B.B.S.
Before Mumbai's favorite lovable tough-guy Munnabhai ran into Gandhi
baba, he had his own father to contend with. Though I saw the films
in reverse order, Munnabhai M.B.B.S. came before the outstanding and delightful Lage raho Munnabhai, introducing movie-watchers to the goonda with a heart of gold and his sidekick Circuit.
Munnabhai (Sanjay Dutt) runs a cheerful money-laundering and shakedown racket with the help of his loyal friend Circuit (Arshad Warsi) and a rag-tag passel of thugs. When Munna learns that his parents (Sunil Dutt and Rohini Hattangadi) are coming to Mumbai for a visit, the troops go into overdrive to get everything set for the biggest con they ever pull: convincing Munna's parents that Munna is a physician (the "M.B.B.S." of the title is in India what M.D. is in the United States). They transform their gangsters' hangout into a bustling clinic, complete with a sign out front honoring the name of Munna's father. The ruse seems to be working, but Munna's bluff is called when his father runs into Dr. Asthana (Boman Irani), his former village doctor - now the dean of the top medical college in Mumbai. Munna's father proposes to get Munna married to Asthana's daughter, Chinki (Gracy Singh), herself a doctor. But when Asthana gets wind of Munna's deception and humiliates him and his parents both, Munna vows to win back the respect of his father, of Asthana, and of Chinki as well - he enrolls in the medical college himself, and soon he is changing the lives of everyone from the staff to the patients with his unique brand of sensitive tough-guy medicine.
The best thing about Munnabhai M.B.B.S. is that it's just plain funny. Munna and Circuit are well-crafted characters and great fun to watch. Their inimitable way of seeing the world is always good for a hearty laugh - they are always convincing people to do the right thing, but their methods are more than a little suspect. Throw in a little (but not too much) slapstick and some excellent physical comedy from the principals as well as the gifted Boman Irani, and you're pretty much guaranteed giggles all the way through.
Apart from the yuks, there's just the right amount of tenderness and feel-good message as well. Munna's dedication and stick-to-itiveness when he sets his mind to a task and Circuit's unwaveringly loyal friendship are sweet and even a little inspiring. And the father-son dynamic of the story - enhanced by the real-life father-son casting of Sanjay and Sunil Dutt - adds another dimension to Munna's character; no matter how tough, no matter how ruthless and feared in his underground business, Munna still craves the approval of his father and will go to extraordinary lengths to achieve it. He may be a goonda, but he's a loveable teddy bear on the inside; all he needs is a chance to set himself right and his innate goodness becomes contagious. This is shown with both humor and poignancy as Munna teaches the hospital staff to really look at the people they are treating.
It's not fair to compare Munnabhai M.B.B.S. to a film that didn't exist at the time, but in spite of everything it does right, I can't help feeling that Lage raho Munnabhai is the better film of the two. Perhaps it's just that I saw the newer film first; or perhaps the concepts of Gandhi-giri and small acts of patience and kindness strike me as more practically applicable than magic hugs. Or may it's the weird and conflicting attitude that Munnabhai M.B.B.S. presents about free-spirited, sexually forward women - on the one hand, Munna wants nothing to do with one such woman whom he thinks is Chinki, but on the other, he's delighted to hire a writhing, spandex-clad dancing girl to entertain a cancer patient (Jimmy Shergill) who doesn't want to die a virgin. But whatever its shortcomings relative to Lage raho Munnabhai, they are small and on the margins; on balance, Munnabhai M.B.B.S. is a satisfying and fun film, warm and good-hearted without being cloying. It's the best visit to the doctor you'll ever have.
सत्यम शिवम सुन्दरम
Beauty isn't skin deep - it isn't in the skin at all, but comes from somewhere else, someplace within. It isn't merely a matter of physical appearance, but finds its source in the goodness of the soul, the mind, the heart. This moral - one that most everyone believes, even if it's a challenge to live by - is the message of Raj Kapoor's Satyam shivam sundaram ("Truth, godliness, beauty"), served up in a package that is sometimes alluring, sometimes confusing, and occasionally nearly beautiful.
Rupa (Zeenat Aman) is star-crossed. Born on Krishna's birthday to a mother who died in childbirth, Rupa's bad-luck curse takes physical form when as a child her face is scarred with scalding oil. She grows up a lonely temple servant, shunned by the other girls of her village and lamented by her father. One day a dashing engineer Ranjeev (Shashi Kapoor) comes to the village to work on a dam project and all the village girls are in his thrall. The one thing Rupa has that the rest of them lack is a heavenly singing voice, and when Ranjeev hears her he falls madly in love. Though she hides her face - and her disfigurement - beneath a chunari, Ranjeev is sure that a voice so perfect must come from something equally beautiful, and so he asks for Rupa's hand. Unveiling her on his wedding night, Ranjeev is horrified by what he sees; he is convinced he has been duped, that another Rupa is out in the village waiting for him. Though his family prevails on him to let the disfigured bride remain in his home, he rejects her completely and wanders in search of "his" Rupa. Rupa sneaks out of the house to rendezvous with him, continuing to hide her face. Eventually, though, Ranjeev may have to accept that there is only one Rupa.
Satyam shivam sundaram's "it's what's on the inside that counts" message is obscured a bit by the broad strokes with which Ranjeev is drawn. "I cannot tolerate any form of ugliness," he declares, planting him firmly in the realm of peculiar and extreme characters. Indeed, his aversion seems to be more pathology than mere preference; when he gazes on Rupa's scars, he perceives not just her minor disfigurement - not all that repulsive on the scale of things - but a horrible sight of deeply torn and rotting flesh. And his mistreatment of Rupa after their marriage solidifies him as a very unsympathetic character. I can't help but think the film would have done better to present, instead of someone to dislike, a hero in whom the audience can see themselves reflected. That would have forced viewers to face their own prejudices, rather than giving them the reassurance that whatever their particular bigotry might be, they are not as intolerant as all that.
Pairing the supposedly unbearably damaged face with Zeenat Aman in all her shapely, wet, clingy-clothed glory is another odd choice. Raj Kapoor gives us a very sexy and sensual Rupa, clad in skimpy and thin temple cottons, perhaps unaware of just how hot she is - but then, no one else seems to notice either. It strains credulity that there is no man who would want a wife who is that sexy from the neck down (not to mention all of Rupa's other gifts), even if someone as weird as Ranjeev finds her scars repugnant. Still, Zeenat's va-va-voom certainly contributes to the visual sumptuousness of the film. And Zeenat plays Rupa with a subtle and sympathetic touch, now fragile and insecure, now instinctively protecting herself. Her best moments come in Rupa's girl power turning point toward the end of the film, and what a turning point it is - Rupa seems to command the forces of nature to teach Ranjeev his lesson.
The best use of all the pretty - and between Zeenat and Shashi there's plenty of pretty to go around - comes in the gorgeous songs of the unusually classical-style Laxmikant-Pyarelal soundtrack. The songs are lushly picturized with trippy visuals - the fabulous "Chanchal sheetal nirmal komal," Rupa's fantasy, is a particular standout, with its outlandish multicolored abstract sets, giant mushrooms, moonscapes, and other acid-trip accoutrements. Somewhat more down to earth but still lovely is "Bhor bhaye panghat pe," shot in pink filters to evoke the light of dawn.
बम्बई
There is something about sectarian violence that pushes all my buttons. I am not Indian, and I am neither Hindu nor Muslim, but for some reason stories of communities torn apart along that particular axis simply breaks my heart. By the end of Mani Ratnam's Bombay I was in tears - not merely weeping, but crying huge, hot, racking sobs. I haven't bawled like that at the end of a film since 1947: Earth. As I said, there's something about sectarian violence. Bombay is very different from Earth in most ways - it's lot more hopeful, for one - but it's also less remote, covering events in recent memory. And like Earth, its characters are so lovable that their anguish sears that much more.
Shekhar (Arvind Swamy) has finished school and returns to his village to tell his family of his plans to take a job at a newspaper in Bombay and attend night classes in journalism. Before he returns to the city, Shekhar catches a glimpse of a young burqa-clad Muslim woman, Shaila Banu (Manisha Koirala) when her veil flutters off her face in a seaside breeze. Shekhar is instantly captivated; he sees her again at a village wedding and then contrives to meet her, learning that she returns his interest. Rebuffed by their furious fathers - his a respected orthodox Hindu pandit, hers a devout Muslim brick-maker - the couple elope to Bombay and marry in a civil ceremony at a municipal office. Disowned by their parents, they build life of modest contentment and are blessed with twin sons. Then internecine tensions spark the Bombay riots of winter 1992-1993 - Hindus and Muslims tear after one another with Molotov cocktails and machetes, upending Shekhar and Shaila Banu's peaceful little world.
Bombay is more a series of beautiful moments than a story. Some of these moments are warm and sweet, others harrowing, others unbearably sad. But they encapsulate the full range of the human experience, from exuberant joy to unbridled anguish. They also demonstrate the depth of tenderness that can exist within a family and that can develop even to bridge the widest gulf. The film offers these elements in a measured and balanced mixture, gently retreating just when the pain seems too much to bear. So, for example, as the sectarian hatred tears violently through the streets of the city, it is held in counterpoint by good-natured and humorous sparring between Shekhar's father and Shaila Banu's. And when the destruction of the riots reaches its apex, Shekhar's father risks his life to save the other man's Koran.
The first time I watched Bombay I felt it was perfect, an engaging story told beautifully with a solid-to-outstanding soundtrack by A.R. Rahman and stunning performances by its principals. Arvind Swamy brings an everyman sensibility to his role; pudgy and relatively ordinary-looking, he is nevertheless completely appealing, and his face registers every emotion perfectly. And Manisha Koirala is not only gorgeous; she is one of the most skilled and expressive actors I've seen. The film seemed utterly flawless.
On second viewing (the very next day) I had to acknowledge its imperfections. Like many a filmi romance, Shekhar's and Shaila Banu's is based on little more than a glance and developed, in shorthand, in a song. And the film offers their mixed-religion household as an idyllic haven, free from the tensions that plague the rest of the city - absent is any sign that compromise or adjustment is necessary to make a marriage work between two people raised so differently. Shaila Banu declares dreamily that Allah gave her children "two gods," but in real life one would expect some conflict between the life cycle rites and customs of the two religions. Bombay sweeps these details under the rug, establishing instead a simple dichotomy where home is pluralistic and safe while the outside world is full of hate and venom.
But on first viewing, critiques like these were beside the point; the movie just enthralled with its beautiful and symbolic moments, carefully crafted and perfectly rendered - like the moment in the gorgeous song "Tu hi re" where Shaila Banu's cloak, the last remnant of her burqa, catches on an anchor as she runs along the shore, and she must shed it to make her first secret meeting with Shekhar. Or the heartbreaking and terrifying moment when one of Shekhar and Shaila Banu's twin boys, riding on the shoulders of his Hindu grandfather, furiously wipes the tilak from the old man's forehead when the pair are confronted by a group of Muslim rioters. At its best, Bombay is a gripping succession of breath-stopping moments like these, and a simply unforgettable film.
(A note on language: Bombay was originally shot in Tamil and dubbed into Telugu and Hindi - the latter being the version that I saw - which is why I've included it in the "regional" category. I suspect it would have been even better in Tamil.)
तीसरी मन्ज़िल
I love the 1960s - I love mod. I love bouffant hair, cat's-eye makeup, and cigarette pants (on guys too). It's no accident that my favorite Hollywood movie, when it comes to style, is Breakfast at Tiffany's, and my favorite Hindi film Jewel Thief. Lucky for me, the mind behind Jewel Thief, Vijay Anand, had more than one stylish thriller in him in the 1960s. Teesri manzil ("third floor") is not quite as perfectly delicious as Jewel Thief but it does have a great deal of tasty 1960s style to offer.
One night a girl named Rupa plummets from a third floor window of a posh resort hotel. Her death is put down as suicide until a year later, when Rupa's sister Sunita (Asha Parekh) turns up to investigate. Sunita believes that Rupa was driven to suicidal despair by her love for a musician named Rocky who seduced and then jilted her. Meanwhile Rocky - also known as Anil Kumar Sona (Shammi Kapoor) - is attracted to Sunita, and hides his identity from her as he tries to win her over. As the investigation unfolds, a number of suspects come to light - Sunita's angry fiance Ramesh (Prem Chopra), originally promised to Rupa; a dancing girl named Ruby (Helen), herself jealously in love with Rocky; a mystery man who, the police inspector on the case (Iftekhar) reveals, left physical evidence at the scene of Rupa's death. Soon Rocky finds his own life in danger as he gets closer and closer to the truth.
The twists may not be as wild as in Jewel Thief, but Teesri manzil is, nevertheless, a satisfying and entertaining noir thriller with a generous helping of romance and style. The characters inhabit a nighttime fantasy world of smoky nightclubs and cabarets with outrageously trippy sets, a perfect mise-en-scene for shady dealings, dark jealousies, and, ultimately, murder. Yet these elements are offered up in contrast with Rocky and Sunita's sunny hilltop romps. The result is a film of shifting moods, the kind of pastiche that perhaps only a Hindi film can pull off.
The actors and their characterizations form no small part of the pleasure of Teesri manzil. Shammi Kapoor here does what he does best - he romances earnestly, dances spastically, and is an all around charming good guy. His character indulges in the Bollywood staple of stalker romance, and while a guy's refusal to take no for an answer often grates, Shammi somehow always makes it work with his inherently reassuring and non-threatening sweetness. Asha Parekh handles her role with the right amount of poutiness, but she's not given as charming a character to work with. Sunita is a little stupid; her grand plan to avenge her sister's death is to lure Rocky into a remote mountainside where a troupe of schoolgirl athletes await to beat him senseless with hockey sticks. ("Rocky - hockey; it's perfect!" she exclaims.) The best scenes in the romance, and its turning point, come when Rocky finally loses patience with her - a refreshing twist in the standard romance line, acknowledging that a pretty face isn't enough to make an appealing heroine.
What will remain with me most from Teesri manzil is the outstanding soundtrack by R.D. Burman, already a favorite before I saw the film and made that much tastier with the over-the-top picturizations, in which the film's beehive-and-cigarette-pants 1960s aesthetic is most aggressively on display. (Once again, more on the music can be found over at Sanket's Desi Music Club.) There's something ineffably wonderful, for example, about the the filmi adaptation of the mashed potato in "Aaja aaja main hoon pyar tera." The very best song is "O haseena zulfonwali", staged on a set that is beyond elaborate and that occupies three-quarters of the cabaret theater in which it is located. The centerpiece of this stage is a magnificent giant blue eye, so enormous that it has dancing girls for eyelashes. This song features the gyrations of Helen, who is positively delicious in her non-musical scenes as well - but to see her framed in the pupil of that humongous eye is sublime, a concentrated moment of pure 1960s Bollywood bliss.
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