Filmi Geek

Namak haraam (1973)

नमक हराम

Many Hindi movies celebrate the powerful bonds of friendship between men.  And many explore  the plight of poor working folk exploited by the rich.  But few movies tackle both these themes at once.  Namak haraam ("traitor") does not simply examine both.  It pits the two themes against each other; it asks whether the bonds of friendship can survive the strain of one man's awakening to social injustice caused at the hands of the other.

The friendship at the center of Namak haraam is intense, even by filmi standards.  Vicky (Amitabh Bachchan) is wealthy and impulsive.  Somu (Rajesh Khanna) is the sort of buddy who goes where Vicky goes and does what he does. Early on, the film gives many ways in which Somu is Vicky's "chamcha," as other characters call him - Somu defers to Vicky's preference in nautch-girls at the kotha they visit, and even walks out on his job as a junior lawyer, when the indolent Vicky does the same.  In return for this excess of loyalty, Somu and his entire barely middle-class family get the benefit of Vicky's wealth, as Vicky puts both Somu and his sister through school. 

So deep runs this connection that Somu is willing to go undercover as a shop worker, to help Vicky settle an irrational score with the shop's labor leader, Bipinlal (A.K. Hangal).  Vicky, who has taken over business operations from his ailing father (Om Shivpuri), feels that Bipinlal has humiliated him, and thirsts for revenge.  Somu's plan is to gather intelligence and ingratiate himself among the workers, so that he can undermine Bipinlal and become the new labor leader while secretly shilling for Vicky.  This scheme - not to mention Vicky and Somu's relationship - is challenged when Somu begins to feel real sympathy for the workers, for the suffering and sacrifice of their hand-to-mouth existence.

Somu is in a unique position to be torn between his loyalty to his friend, and the moving stories of the workers:  Somu is from the middle class.  Vicky's father believes that the middle class cannot be trusted.  They have designs on our wealth, he says, and the desire to be important; yet they are also burdened by a conscience that will inevitably lead them to betray us.  In this declaration - the assertion that conscience requires the middle class to betray the interests of the rich - Vicky's father explicitly admits that the conduct of the business elite is inherently amoral.  Vicky, at least at this point in the film, is oblivious to that conclusion.  But Somu, removed from the insulation of Vicky's great wealth, and living, working, and drinking with people who struggle for survival, sees a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I connection between himself and the beleaguered poor.  He is genuinely shocked to meet a worker who his thankful to have lost his hands in an accident on the job, because the modest settlement Vicky pays to the worker allows him to get his daughter married.  And Somu begins to question how he and Vicky can so cavalierly drink a month of such a worker's wages in one glass of imported whisky.

Somu's developing conscience is indeed what ultimately drives him.  Whether Somu can transfer that conscience to Vicky, via the vector of friendship, is less clear.  When Vicky chooses to go to prison for a terrible crime committed by his own father, he does not take the fall out of conscience.  Rather, it seems to come from the same overinflated urge for revenge that sent Vicky scheming against Bipinlal earlier in the film.  The serene, contemplative Vicky who emerges from prison - his girlfriend (Simi Garewal) calls him a "philosophy professor" - seems finally to have learned how to let the benefit of others inspire his actions, instead of being driven by the desire to destroy.  Friendship, it seems, can teach populist values - but it takes a lot of time.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee's movies are often distinguished by a delicacy of performance, a touch that is tender and relatable, gentle and real.  Namak haraam delivers this in parts.  Surprisingly, the most off-kilter notes are sounded by Amitabh Bachchan.  He is usually so compellingly intense in his pre-stardom roles.  But the intensity is too manic here, and too weird.  His responses to everything - to friendship, to perceived humiliation, to perceived betrayal - seem disproportionate, and is maturation likewise disproportionately beatific.

Rajesh Khanna, in contrast, who can be so offensively beatific at times, is very effective here, registering in pensive expressions the dawning realization of the true hardships his fellow workers and slum neighbors face. The real scene-stealing performances, though, are among those workers and neighbors.  Asrani always shines in his supporting roles, and he delivers here as one of the shop workers.  Rekha steals Somu's heart in a small but pleasingly earthy part.  And standing out above all - even upstaging Rajesh Khanna - is Raza Murad, playing Alam, a depressed and drunk poet and kitemaker whom Somu befriends.  His angular, striking face is utterly compelling as he delivers the sad poetry of working-class hopelessness to an awed Somu.  Namak haraam is a good enough movie, and Vicky's journey from clueless trust-fund baby to sensitive socialist is not without its appeal.  But I would pay twice to see the story told again from Alam's perspective. 

 

Filmi Geek's 2012 in review

I missed too many well-regarded releases this year to produce a meaningful "Best of 2012" type list.  Without Gangs of Wasseypur, Vicky Donor, and other acclaimed new films, what business do I have making such assertions?

But all Hindi movies, new or old, are new to me.  And so anything I saw this past year can be part of my own personal best of 2012.  And I have had a very good year indeed for Hindi movies. I am fortunate to have the filtering lens of history and the very good sense of many friends to guide my movie choices. So it is quite rare that I see movies I really hate, and about a quarter of all the Hindi movies I have ever seen make it into my Favorites category. Even so, there are a few films that stand out as my best filmi experiences of the year.  Here they are, with links to my reviews of them.

• Kahaani (2012).  A movie that  makes many a best of 2012 list, I'm sure.  This was the first movie I saw after returning from India, and it made me want to march right back to the airport and get on a plane to Calcutta.  Kahaani had another effect on me as well - about halfway through, while Vidya Balan and her pregnant waddle filled the screen with irresistible presence, a thought struck me like a brick to the head:  "I am in love with this woman."  I was late to hop on the Vidya train, I know, but this is the movie that did it.

• Tere ghar ke samne (1963).  My viewing experience in 2012 was shaped and colored by my first trip to India, which came very early in the year.  I watched this film on the way home, hoping to extend the mood of my trip just a little longer, and was rewarded with its marvelous use of Qutub Minar in the brilliant song "Dil ka bhanwar kare pukar."  This is also the movie that made me realize that Vijay Anand is quite possibly my favorite director of Hindi movies.  There is not a flaw to be found in this beautiful piece of cinematic entertainment - I love everything about it. 

• Kaala patthar (1979).  The first "why did I wait so long to watch this" movie of my year.  Of course I did not know at the time that this year would be Yash Chopra's last.  When he died, I remembered him in the taut perfection of this movie and how it delivers everything that makes me love Hindi movies in one riveting package. 

• Band baaja baaraat (2010).  Part of 2012 for me was catching up on recent releases I'd missed while being occupied with other projects.  So here on my best of 2012 list is a movie that made many best of 2010 lists.  I will allow that my gushing over this movie may have been a little out of proportion to its eventual place in history.  However, I have watched it three or four times this year and I have to say it still stands up.  It's one I'll show to newcomers, as well. 

• Ek Saal (1957), Mahal (1949), Kismet (1943).  This is cheating a little, as none of these is really all the way to a favorite movie.  But one of the themes of my 2012 viewing has been growing respect and love for Ashok Kumar, who has risen to become one of my all-time favorite actors.  These aren't the only movies of his I saw this year - I also got to see his delightful avuncular avatar in movies like Chhoti si baat and Aradhana - but they are early, stardom-defining turns of his, that gave me a lot of insight into the man and his enduring appeal.

• Chhoti si baat (1975). Such a delightful confection that lands me squarely on the Amol Palekar train (in case there was any doubt after Golmaal).

• The Dirty Picture (2011).  If Kahaani made me fall in love with Vidya Balan, what do I really need to say about The Dirty Picture?  In that respect, the review speaks for itself.

• Delhi-6 (2009).  This movie closed the feedback loop between my visit to India and my experience of Indian movies.  As I said in the review, "watching Hindi movies has made India a fascination for me of limitless depth and life, and seeing India inperson has made Hindi movies breathe with a new vivacity."

• English Vinglish (2012). Another movie that makes many best of the year lists.  There isn't much I can add to the mostly ebullient discourse about this touching, delightful movie, except that I can't wait to show it to my mother.

• Naya daur (1957).  This movie did not exactly make a Dilip Kumar fan out of me, but there is much to love in it all the same.  A clear antecedent of one of my all-time favorites, Lagaan, Naya daur offers grand allegorical themes, vibrant characters, and absolutely wonderful songs.   A classic I have not seen many discuss, I am very glad to have learned about it in 2012.

• 7 khoon maaf (2011).  This bizarre, intriguing movie snuck up on me, and by the time it was done I couldn't wait to watch it again.  An unexpected keeper.

Honorable Mention:  Tere naal love ho gaya (2012).  Cute and harmless, this not a memorable movie by any objective standard.  But I saw this movie in a cinema hall in Jaipur - the first and to date the only movie I've seen in a theater in India, and so it ranks easily among my best filmi experiences of 2012 and it will always be close to my heart.  And to be fair to this little movie, I rewatched it recently (for mindless viewing while suffering a stomach flu) and found it held up to the rewatch - still cute and adequately entertaining, with more than a few legitimate laughs.

Thanks for reading.  Here's to a filmi 2013 that is just as satisfying and enduring for me and you as well.

Namkeen (1982)

नमकीन

Sharmila Tagore made a career playing living embodiments of female sacrifice and suffering. In movies such as Amar prem and Aradhana, her characters endure a lifetime of loss and debasement, rewarded at the end with the exalted recognition of mother-worship. Gulzar's Namkeen ("salty") offers an alternative perspective on this theme. Delicate, quiet, and sad, Namkeen is a shifting blend of flavors to slowly savor - part salty, part sweet, and part tangy, like the three sisters of the family it portrays.

Nimki (Sharmila Tagore) is the mortar that holds her fragile family together. She looks after her younger sisters, the mute, sweet Meethu (Shabana Azmi) and spirited Chinki (Kiran Vairale). Together the three sisters care for their aging Amma (Waheeda Rehman), a troubled, frail woman bordering on senile dementia. Geru (Sanjeev Kumar), an itinerant construction hauler in the family's village for a brief contract, rents a room from the family, and before long bonds of friendship and even love develop between Geru and each of these women.

Namkeen unflinchingly delivers the raw hardship of village life for a family of women living without a man. The men of Namkeen are rootless wanderers; Geru's job takes him from town to town, and even the three women's father Kishenlal leads a traveling dance troupe that only rarely passes through the village. The women are rooted to the village but that rooting is their downfall. Amma scrapes and sells cow dung to get by, but fertilizes nothing within her own household; her daughters take on the rough physical labor of pounding spices, a quintissential domestic chore, but the spices are for other people to cook with. Geru's fellow construction workers, as they come and go, pause to harass and badmouth the women. Only Geru forms a connection, and even his is mercurial, expiring with his contract.

Each woman frames her own escape from these strangling roots. Meethu's youthful escape is into poetry, which gives her some joy, but her muteness renders this joy solitary. And it is inadequate as the outgrows the naïveté of youth; her ultimate escape is only through madness and death. Chinki's departure appears on the surface more voluntary - she flees to join her father's dance troupe - but there are hints of abuse and coercion in Amma's wild fear of him, which solidify with Chinki's transformation into hard bitterness after joining the troupe.

Nimki, though, finds no escape. She makes relentless sacrifices for the family. When Geru shows interest in marrying her, she first tries to deflect his interest to Meethu, willing to pass her own chance for escape on to her sister.  Then Nimki refuses Geru outright, insisting that she cannot leave her mother and sisters behind.  I read that Rekha was originally cast in the role of Nimki, replaced by Sharmila Tagore at some point in production.  I am very glad this change happened.  With any other actor, Namkeen would have been a straightforward, sad tale of the hardships of village life for women.  The casting of Sharmila elevates it into commentary on her canonical mother-goddess roles; it makes the reference, comparison, and contrast explicit.  Unlike Sharmila Tagore's other long-suffering goddesses, Nimki's self-conscious sacrifice does not bring apotheosis.  Nimki loses everything, and her endurance is rewarded with almost nothing.  Only a chance encounter that drives Geru back to the village rescues Nimki from utter loneliness and obscurity.  Although Geru saves Nimki from an utterly tragic ending, their salty-sweet reunion has the air of a narrow escape, not the inevitable due of a sanctified mother goddess.  Namkeen's is a more balanced look at life's suffering, more real and less allegorical, than the almost religious fables of movies like Amar prem and Aradhana.

The beauty of Namkeen as a film comes through in its quiet use of detail to convey relationships and themes with subtlety.  Amma's anxiety and confusion, Meethu and Chinki's sense of humor, Nimki's grounding competence are all illustrated by gentle domestic vignettes that are thoroughly engaging.  In early scenes, Geru struggles grumpily to adjust to the raw simplicity of life in Amma's home while the sisters look on in amusement, able to help but declining to offer.  At first Geru thinks basic hospitality and necessities are not forthcoming, until Nimki arrives and puts everything in order.  Geru's growing affection for the sisters, too, is gently portrayed, in an outstanding performance of Sanjeev Kumar, one with a low center of gravity that is nevertheless not overly heavy, and reminds me once again why he is my favorite male actor in Hindi movies. 

Indeed every note in Namkeen is perfectly struck, from Chinki's wry smiles to Amma's crooked spectacles to Nimki's resigned labor.  The dust of the village fills the camera but never obscures the colors of village life.  It is simply a beautiful movie, presenting the balanced flavors of life that blend and interact to build complexity from simplicity.  Part tangy, part salty, part sweet.  

7 khoon maaf (2011)

७ खून माफ़

I liked 7 khoon maaf ("7 murders forgiven") so much that I watched it twice in a week, and I am still not sure what to make of it.  Dark, weird, and bold, this strange Vishal Bhardwaj drama is part psychological study, part mystery, and part black comedy.  It is uneven in parts, lurching in tone from vignette to vignette.  These shifts can be confusing, leaving the viewer unsure which bits are earnest and which ironic.  But the weird, slightly disorienting effect is marvelously compelling.  Propelled by superb photography and a number of chillingly engaging performances, 7 khoon maaf is a visit to a sinister carnival's fun house.  It's discomfiting and even disturbing at times, and when it's over you can't wait to do it again, and bring your friends. 

Adapted from Ruskin Bond's story Susanna's Seven Husbands, 7 khoon maaf tells the story of Susanna Anna-Maria Johannes (Priyanka Chopra), a wealthy Christian woman whose long procession of husbands each meets an untimely and often violent demise.  Like another Ruskin Bond story adapted into movie form, Junoon, the story explores a dark psychology, the dangerous corners of a passionate mind.  But where Junoon anchors its study in the larger historical context of the Sepoy Mutiny, lending it a broader allegorical reading, 7 khoon maaf keeps its focus inward, on the mind of Susanna herself and, to a lesser extent, the mind of the young man who narrates the tale.  That young man, Arun (Vivaan Shah), catches Susanna's attention as a boy servant in her household; she finances his schooling and eventually sends him to study medicine, and a bond of love develops between them that secures Arun's loyalty to her well into adulthood, even years after losing touch with her.  As Arun narrates Susanna's tale to his own wife (Konkona Sen Sharma, in a saucy and poignant cameo), Arun makes himself vulnerable by exposing the depth of his bond to Susanna and just how much he is willing to risk to protect her.  But the real story is what drives Susanna.

The story of each of Susanna's husbands - how they meet, their courtship, and ultimately how they die - creates a separate vignette or episode within the movie, and these range from sad, to disturbing, to disturbingly funny.  In each vignette, Susanna tries on a different persona - a new style of dress, a new religion, even a new name.  Arun provides a facile, oversimplified explanation for Susanna's many romances; he says that she "looks for her father in every man she meets."  But while her experimentations do have the air of a desperate search, it is as much a search for her own identity as a search for her father.  And over time the search leaves her weary - by the fifth husband, Inspector Keemat Lal (Annu Kapoor), she is bored and resigned to the ritual of courtship, marriage, and murder - and eventually insane.  It is only through obliteration of all identities - her own death and rebirth - that Susanna can find peace, and that is why her seventh and final marriage is with a partner who has himself died and been reborn. 

Each vignette, too, reveals a bit more about the forces the lead to the husbands' deaths.  Is Susanna herself killing them?  Is her small cadre of loyal misfit servants doing the dirty work for her?  If so, are they acting on their own to protect her, or with her knowledge and at her bidding?  These questions are unanswered at first, but the truths shimmer into focus with satisfying pace as the narrative unfolds.

Part of the movie's dark thrill lies in its moral ambiguity.  Some of Susanna's husbands are horrible, vicious men, for sure, but others are more sympathetic or even hapless victims.  And even in the case of the worst abuser, the third husband - a seductively dashing Kashmiri poet (Irrfan Khan) who gets sexual satisfaction from beating the snot out of Susanna - Arun asks why he had to die; could Susanna not just have left him?  It's a fair question; Susanna and her servants operate in a constantly shifting landscape of revenge, protection, defense, and ennui that combine with the movie's shifts in tone to produce an effect that is pleasingly unsettling.  The scenes with the poet are difficult to watch - Irrfan Khan is smolderingly sexy in this role, and his character recites the most beautiful and thoughtful lines, but there is no beauty in the bruises he leaves on Susanna's body and psyche, and despite Arun's question it's easy to get behind the sneering revenge in his fate.  Likewise the first husband, Major Edwin Rodrigues (Neil Nitin Mukesh),  a plainly vicious, insecure man.   Wounded in battle, he asserts his fragile manhood in violent outbursts and creepy, if not explicitly abusive, displays of sexual dominance over Susanna; when he leeringly caresses her face with the stump of his amputated leg, it is not hard to imagine still more vile treatment to come, and not hard to sigh with relief at his death - which, being the first in the film, is also the most plausibly dismissed as an accident. 

But this sense of justice served evaporates quickly.  And in a brilliant directorial maneuver by Bhardwaj, the most cold-blooded and least justifiable of the deaths come in the most comical of the vignettes.  The fourth husband, a Russian spy named Vronsky (Aleksandr Dyachenko) is batted around like a mouse in the paws of Susanna and her servants, as they have some sport with him before he is dispatched.  This scene is maniacally chilling and also very funny.   And the poor smitten Inspector Keemat Lal, whose courtship is suffered by a bored, eye-rollingly unimpressed Susanna, encounters death by punchline in a Viagra overdose.  In both cases the viewer  is left snickering at the joke, and at the very same time thinking that Susanna has perhaps gone more than a bridge too far. 

Finally, there is Priyanka Chopra, the heartbeat that drives every aspect of 7 khoon maaf.  I am fully sold on Priyanka Chopra as an actor - I was already most of the way there after seeing Barfi - and it is her empathy, her portrayal of Susanna's confusion and desperation and fear and her ultimate resignation that knits these almost disparate vignettes together into a compelling and cohesive story.   Most of the other performances are strong as well - several of the husbands I have mentioned, and the Susanna's sideshow freak gallery of loyal servants (Shashi Malviya, Harish Khanna, and Usha Uthup) are also magnificent.   But these performances would not be enough to carry the movie were Priyanka Chopra not up to the task of embodying the shape-shifting peregrinations of Susanna across the decades that the narrative spans.  It is a remarkable performance that makes for a remarkable, bizarre, and utterly compelling movie. 

Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl (2011)

Con movies are fun. Watching a likable, charismatic hero pull off a big, bold heist is simply satisfying. The characters don't even need to have the moral high ground for a movie to be fun and loveable - Bunty aur Babli are no Robin Hoods but one can't help rooting for them every step of the way. And when the con is for a morally good cause - like the fast one pulled in Bluffmaster to teach the hero the error of his ways - it can be even easier to get behind.

Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl is a movie of this type - four women band together to out-con a con man who has taken three of them for a ride. The women are clearly on the side of justice, even if their extralegal methods are somewhat unconventional, and this, plus some sparkling and lively performances, makes them very sympathetic. Their target (Ranveer Singh), who goes by many names - they mostly refer to him as Bloody Kamina, or BK - is, in contrast, hardly sympathetic at all. He has a handsome smile but otherwise a smarmy, slimy air; knowing what he's made of makes it hard to dredge up any concern for him at all.

And that, unfortunately, undermines the central twist of the film. Ishika (Anushka Sharma), the talented, ruthless salesgirl that BK's three victims hire to put the con on him, supposedly falls in love with BK, and he with her. It's a nice idea, but it is the weakest aspect of the movie. After their cracklingly effective chemistry in Band baaja baaraat - one that earned an absolutely breathless gushing review from me - here Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh fall a bit flat. Part of the reason is that the movie does not spend as much time laying a foundation for their connection as Band baaja baaraat did; in that movie, the relationship between their characters was central to every aspect of the film, while here it is considerably more incidental. But worse than that, there is nothing substantive for Ishika and BK to build a relationship upon. Each has lied about who they are; each plays a role in hopes of fooling the other. On what basis do they fall in love? Only because the script says so, and this is the most unsatisfying kind of film romance. As good as they were with the strongly scripted character arcs of Band baaja baaraat, Anushka and Ranveer do not seem up to the task of filling in the holes here.

There is more mild dissatisfaction in the movie's resolution. Although BK earns his redemption, he does so by getting the better of the women. So instead of triumph, the women - who have already suffered quite a bit at BK's hands - are delivered a humiliating defeat. They do not cause BK's change of heart through their cleverness; rather, BK on his own does them the kindness of repaying what he conned from them. Despite the best efforts of these very smart, resourceful women, the man remains in control - and it is his volition, not theirs, that determines the ultimate outcome. I reluctantly admit that this didn't bother me much when I watched the movie; I went along fairly uncritically for the ride. But several people have since brought it to my attention, and it has become an irritation to my feminist sensibilities that, once perceived, cannot be unseen. It has soured this otherwise enjoyable movie in my memory.

Despite these weaknesses, though, Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl is entertaining to watch while it is happening, largely on the strength of the characterizations and performances of BK's three victims. These women are cleanly and consistently written, individual and each charming in her own way. The spearhead of the operation to beat BK at his own game is Raina (Dipannita Sharma), a resourceful and ambitious young executive who brings all her business skill and contacts to bear on her mission of revenge. It's satisfying to watch Raina channel her anger - and embarrassment - at having been conned, focusing it on a methodical, business-like approach to turning the tables on BK. And  BK's most timid victim, the young Lucknowi widow Saira (Aditi Sharma), presents the most substantial character arc, as she grows in confidence and strength over the course of the film.

But Parineeti Chopra completely steals the show here in her debut role as BK's third young victim, Dimple. Dimple may be a bundle of Punjabi stereotypes - boisterous, crass, angry - but Parineeti brings her to life with a charming fearlessness. Cursing, yelling, sobbing, gobbling down snacks, frantic with immature jealousy over BK - whatever Parineeti does as Dimple she does with complete abandon. I thrill to see young female actors willing to throw their bodies into thoroughly unglamorous roles. Like Konkona Sen Sharma in Aaja nachle, or Parineeti's older cousin Priyanka Chopra in Barfi, Parineeti Chopra shows impressive readiness to sacrifice conventional sex appeal for the sake of embodying her character and telling a story. The result is a magnificently and thoroughly appealing (if unconventionally so) performance that shines on its own as a compelling reason to watch this movie. One has to look forward to what else this promising young actor can offer.

Talaash (2012)

तलाश

Warning:  This review contains significant spoilers.

Most thrillers have a twist toward the end, a surprise revelation that spills new light on the narrative or yanks the viewer into a new perspective.  The danger for the makers of thrillers is that the full experience of the movie turns on the effectiveness of such moments. Handled well, a thriller's twist can leave a viewer gobsmacked and tingling.  Such thrillers are the ones you watch over and over, looking for clues that hint toward the revelation to come. They are the movies you discuss with your friends, arguing endlessly over what the narrative means. 

Reema Kagti's Talaash ("search") is not one of these thrillers.  Instead, it is two hours of taut, consistent filmmaking craft, undermined in the end by a facile and unsatisfying twist.  The movie features intense performances and a seductive, appealingly creepy noir mood.  But instead of psychological insight or lasting mystery, Talaash's great promise delivers only a hackneyed spook-revenge tale.

Talaash's tagline, "The answer lies within," promises a psychological resolution, and indeed the film could have been a fascinating psychological study of a man broken by loss and guilt.  Had the answer indeed lain within - had the apparition of Rosie (Kareena Kapoor) been not a real live ghost but a hallucinatory construct of Inspector Shekhawat's (Aamir Khan) troubled conscience - Talaash could have had something compelling to say about the waste that unchecked grief can lay to a life and a marriage.  The movie offers much foundation for this kind of study. Deep in denial, Shekhawat orders his wife Roshni (Rani Mukherjee) into therapy.  But he refuses to acknowledge the toll his own grief takes on him, in sleepless nights and unspoken sorrows. In one powerful sequence, Shekhawat remembers and reimagines the preamble to his young son's death, conjuring several alternate histories in which Shekhawat makes different choices that prevent the accident.  This is a man rotting from the inside with his own guilt. 

But this delicate, promising thread is rendered a red herring by Talaash's twist.  As a hallucination, as a manifestation of Shekhawat's troubles, Rosie could have helped lead him toward insight or even redemption.  As a ghost, though, she is just so much voodoo woo-woo with no connection to what happens in Shekhawat's troubled mind, nothing to say about coping with deep grief, a mere plot surprise for its own sake that sheds no light on the central drama of Shekhawat and Roshni's life.  All of that careful psychological exploration is unsatisfyingly wasted.

As alternative to pure psychological study, Talaash could have left its resolution to the viewer.  Part of the thrill of a movie like Inception is that no one knows for certain what really happened in the narrative.  Rewatchings and endless debates lend the movie lasting value - a gift from the filmmaker that keeps on giving.  Talaash, though, leaves no such open questions.  Instead, it is unambiguous that we are to interpret Rosie as a real ghost; Shekhawat finds her body right where she tells him it lies, including the distinctive ring that her apparition wore.  Talaash could have offered a rich array of puzzles to chew on - if Rosie is Shekhawat's figment, what caused Armaan Kapoor to drive his car into the bay?  What does it mean that Shekhawat had a nearly identical accident?  Instead, there's nothing left to debate. 

Thus Talaash is doubly unsatisfying - once in cheating the viewer out of the lasting pleasure of ambiguity, and again in that the certainty it presents is so improbable and lame.  Rosie as vengeful spirit, exacting punishment from those responsible for her death is boring and unsatisfying.  Worse, it is without meaningful connection to Shekhawat and Roshni's grief-stricken, troubled marriage.  Indeed, that Rosie is a ghost implies that the mysterious letters they receive from the dead boy are real as well.  Thus Shekhawat and Roshni are absolved of coming to grips with their son's absence, allowed instead to continue to communicate with him. This is not character development; it is a dreadfully facile non-resolution.

It has been pointed out to me that another Reema Kagti film, Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., also includes a supernatural element - one of its couples has very real superpowers.  Despite the goofy unreality of that device, I unreservedly adore the movie.  There is an important difference in tone, however.  Unlike the gritty street realism of Talaash, Honeymoon Travels has the air of a fable, and each of the couples' stories can both be viewed as a literal vignette and read as a metaphor for some aspect of communication between spouses.  Aspi and Zara's superpowers, which they both had and hid from one another since childhood, stand for all the secrets one keeps from one's partner out of fear of being misunderstood and judged.  In Talaash, Rosie too could have been a rich metaphor.   Instead, she is nothing more than a middling spook, barely worthy of campfire story or urban legend.

Talaash wastes all Reema Kagti's well-crafted moods - the restlessness of the night in Mumbai's red light district, the oppressive dimness of Shekhawat and Roshni's apartment, the creepy wide-eyed friendliness of Roshni's neighbor, Frenny (Shernaz Patel), who claims to speak with the dead.  The movie squanders some marvelous performances too, especially those of Rani Mukherjee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.  Rani is achingly sympathetic in as mature, real, and unglamorous a role as she has ever done (her work in Yuva compares).  For all I love Rani's effervescent cuteness in romantic comedies, there is no doubt that she has the chops for a role like this one, and I love to see directors give her the chance to use them.  Siddiqui is fascinatingly physical and diminutive as a hungry errand-boy who opportunistically gets involved in a blackmail scheme connected to Shekhawat's investigation of Armaan Kapoor's death.  It is a shame that Talaash wasted all these great efforts with its supernatural faffing about.  What had all the makings of a very memorable movie is considerably weakened instead, to a merely passable ghost story.

 

Sadma (1983)

सदमा

When I was in college, I participated in a group-authored comic-fantasy story.  We would gather in the dorm lounge and scribble in our large notebook, sometimes collaborating, sometimes each of us writing a chapter on her own.  Once, one of the authors wanted to change the sex of her character from male to female. To make this happen, she caused his horse to gallop through a "Plot Device" - that is what she called it in the story, a cloud of mist into which Lord Brandon rode, and from which Lady Brendan emerged.

Balu Mahendra's Sadma ("blow, shock, trauma") relies on an equally expedient plot device, a bit of filmi-medicine sleight of hand that turns Nehalata (Sridevi) from a vibrant young woman into a mental seven-year-old trapped in a grown-up's body. A similar device repairs her mind at the film's end, with a convenient amnesia for the time she spent mentally as a child.  But if these absurd expediences are forgiven, if one gives oneself over to the conceit and goes with it, the reward is a touching, subtle, and moving story about love, and bonding, and the nature of nurture.

I went into Sadma with unfairly low expectations.  Beth had seen the Tamil original, Moondram pirai, and had some serious problems with it. Meanwhile, I was fettered by the assumption that even Sridevi's best movies are dire and unrelatable to non-Indians like myself; my experience with Lamhe, another movie so often cited as a highlight of Sridevi's career, had confirmed this feeling. As I began watching the movie, I tweeted:

I was quite wrong; Sadma is not downhill from there.  It is often disturbing and hard to watch; the ending is magnificently brutal.  But it is marked by splendid performances and a surprisingly delicate touch.  I have seen a few people comment that Kamal Haasan's character, Somu, is creepy and inappropriate in his care for the childlike Nehalata.  But I do perceive no creepiness in Somu at all.  To the contrary, he is consistently shown to be a good-hearted, straight-laced fellow - he eschews alcohol, is inexperienced with sex, and refuses the aggressive advances of his boss's wife Soni (Silk Smitha).  His concern and caring for the fragile, damaged Nehalata is evident from the moment he encounters her in the brothel she was sold to after being kidnapped by some unnamed evildoer.  And throughout the film, Somu's love is patently paternal, never lewd or inappropriate.  In just one sequence does Somu view Nehalata as a lover, and this comes in a dream, which he seems eager to shake off on awakening.  The fantasy seems to make Somu as uncomfortable as it makes the viewer.

The sweetness of the relationship between Somu and Nehalata is epitomized the adorable song "Ek dafa ek jungal tha," in which Somu acts out the panchatantra fable of the jackal who fell into a vat of blue dye and briefly fooled the rest of the jungle's animals into treating him as a god.

 

I am not crazy about the filmi mode of presenting mental illness (or in this case, traumatic brain injury) in the form of arrested development, even though I have seen it used in some very good films.  Diya Mirza plays such a character in  Tehzeeb, where the device a bit of a weakness and distraction in an otherwise excellent movie. In the much older Bahurani, Guru Dutt's rendering of the same deficit is touching, and works as well as it does partly because of its allegorical value.  Here in Sadma, it is more contrivance than symbolism; it does not seem to carry any particular emblematic meaning, but rather provides a canvas on which the movie's touching relationship is painted.  Sadma is widely viewed as one of the best performances of Sridevi's career, perhaps because of the challenge of portraying the unrealistic deficit in a believable way.  Sridevi meets that challenge more than adequately; even in her more typical roles she often has a woman-child quality to her performance, and Nehalata is the quintessence, the distillation of such characters to pure crystalline form.  Sridevi's performance is remarkably consistent and unselfconscious, free from winks at the audience or inappropriate moments of preternaturally adult behavior.  The performance works, and is satisfying, sympathetic, and moving, despite the inherent weakness of the device itself. 

Woven through Sadma are several coarse threads that contrast with the fine tenderness of the relationship between Somu and Nehalata.  The sad, desperate Soni flails about for escape from her decidedly untender marriage to Somu's employer.  Her breathless, brazen attempts to seduce Somu are distressing to watch.  And Soni's erotic dream about him, which from a pure marketing point of view is merely an excuse for a sexy Silk Smitha item number, nevertheless highlights the extreme disconnect between her desires and the plodding reality of her life. 

 

Soni's pathetic overwrought worldliness casts Nehalata's innocence in sharp relief.  Contrasting along a different axis is the lecherous Balua (Gulshan Grover), who exploits Nehalata's childlike mind to take advantage of her adultlike body.  There is contrast, too, between Somu's earnest goodness and the boozy appetites of his friend Paintal, who drags Somu to the brothel where he first encounters Nehalata and resolves to rescue her.  The roughness of these stories makes the warmth and sympathy between Nehalata and Somu that much more gentle in contrast; Somu's home becomes a haven in which gentle fables can be told and puppies played with in peace, while the harshness of the world remains outside.  These tendernesses - especially the tenderness with which Kamal Haasan renders Somu - makes the unutterable cruelty that the film does to Somu in its climax all the more vicious a sucker punch.  Haasan's performance in the film's final minutes is truly memorable, rendered in pure emotion and without background score apart from the driving beat of the rain and the engine of the train taking Nehalata away from Somu forever.

 

 

I Can't Think Straight (2008)

I have to admit up front that the desi content of this movie is so minimal that it doesn't strictly belong on Filmi Geek.  But what the heck, I'll write about it anyhow.  I crave stories about love between women, and I crave stories in which women in patriarchal cultures (including my own culture, I must point out) find the value of asserting autonomous control over their own sexuality.  Shamim Sarif's I Can't Think Straight at least attempts to offer both.  And with my interest in the rich, diverse cultures of both the Middle East and India, this romance between a Jordanian aristocrat (Lisa Ray) and a London daughter of middle-class Indian immigrants (Sheetal Sheth) should have hit all my sweet spots.  Instead, it's a warty, often cringe-worthy production.  But I can't bring myself to shred it mercilessly.  I Can't Think Straight is a movie whose ham-fisted unsubtlety is punctuated by occasional moments of smart and sexy.  It's a movie, in short, that is a lot like me. 

To its credit, I Can't Think Straight has some sweetness to it and strikes a few good targets.   The relationship between Tala (Ray) and Leyla (Sheth) starts off contrived but becomes more believable as the film progresses.  Early on Tala's brash confidence overwhelms the tentative Leyla.  But it becomes clear that Tala's numerous broken engagements are not the result of strong-headed wilfulness - to the contrary, they are the detritus of her confusion, uncertain attempts to be what her overbearing mother wants her to be.  In the meantime, Leyla's arc takes the opposite trajectory - as she comes into her own as a writer and as a lesbian, her uncertainty transforms into absolute strength and confidence.  "You have to admire her guts," says a mutual friend of the two women (Rez Kempton), and he's quite right.

And so the two women don't just feel attraction to one another, but they do deeply change one other.  Tala challenges Leyla's  already shaky adherence to her Muslim faith.  In return, Leyla inspires Tala to stand up to the culture that Tala feels limits her choices so severely.  When Tala insists that she cannot pursue her love for Leyla because Jordanian high society is closed-minded and conservative, Leyla points out that "it will stay that way, as long as no one is willing to challenge it." 

These are the movie's strengths.  Unfortunately this simply moving story is embedded in a distracting matrix of cliché, stereotype, caricature, and unsubtlely that requires an entire tray of freshly-baked eyerolls to get through.  Tala's mother Reema (Antonia Frering) is a cartoon witch of a Middle-Eastern socialite, making her daughters miserable with constant harping on their weight and fashion choices, and barking orders at staff who despise her.  ("Where is my husband?  And where is my coffee?")  Leyla's mother (Siddiqua Akhtar) is even worse, hitting every stereotype of the provincial, fresh-off-the-boat NRI housewife.  Her performance is dreadful, full of mealy smiles and nahin-faces that would be better suited to a saas-bahu serial than to a movie that appears to want to be understated.  This is the only remotely desi content in the film, and it's just cringe-inducing.

The early stages of Tala and Leyla's relationship are particularly fraught with facepalm moments of dreadful writing.  Leyla seems perpetually to attract bits of lint that Tala is compelled to pluck off of her, leading one to wonder why Sarif could not come up with other excuses for the two women to touch.  A tennis match provides an especially corny and heavy-handed metaphor for their growing attraction, complete with a breathlessly panted "That was amazing!" at its conclusion.  Tennis is not effete enough to convey Tala's aristocratic milieu, so she also plays a polo match, leading to one of the film's most nauseating exchanges:

Leyla (practically batting her eyelashes): I was worried you were going to fall, leaning across the horse like that!

Tala (with forced nonchalance): I like to take chances.

Filmi Geek:  Puke.  

Moments like this are bad enough, and the unsubtlety just gets thicker and thicker.  At its nadir, Leyla's sympathetic and proactive sister Yasmin (Amber Rose Revah) tries to figure out what's troubling Leyla, before the latter has come out even to herself.  The astute Yasmin notices a stack of books on Leyla's dresser - Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters, even Martina Navratilova's autobiography - and a k.d. lang CD nearby.  Really, Sarif?  Really?   And finally, the entire movie may be one extended setup for this chestnut of a punchline uttered by a gossipy Middle Eastern lady in its denouement:  "She's what? But some of my best friends are Lebanese!" 

The weak writing - both for the caricatured parents and the lovers themselves - hog-ties all the actors into stiff, formulaic performances. In contrast to all this woodenness, the movie's sex scenes are outstanding - fluid, passionate, and downright hot.  It seems that when Sarif cuts her actors loose and lets them just be and feel, they can do a lot more than when constrained by the fetters of Sarif's unnatural scripting.

The movie's 80-minute running time, while merciful, also forces it to short-change anything more than superficial examination of how either woman's cultural and religious heritage affects their prospect for life together.  Tala asserts that her reluctance to lead the "difficult" life in a lesbian relationship is due to the strictures of Jordanian society, but her family is so outrageously wealthy and her life so apparently divorced from Jordanian society that her reasoning is suspect.  Even a white American child of such a socially prominent and controlling mother would have a hard time rebelling against parental expectations; there is nothing especially Middle Eastern about this.  Meanwhile, Leyla's struggle against her culture is painted in the color of stereotype and seems to resolve itself the moment she comes out to herself and her family.  If the dialogue weren't so painful, it would be nice to have 40 minutes more of it, to give some more depth to aspects of these characters' lives that could have been more particularly Arabic and desi.      

Still, I wouldn't devote so many words to complaining about the weaknesses of a movie that doesn't also show a lot of potential to be better.  For all those stiffly executed, lazily written scenes, I Can't Think Straight offers moments of delicate thoughtfulness and sympathy for its characters.  These (plus the terrific sex scenes, which are worth watching again, for research purposes of course) make it worth cringing through the worst parts, if stories about love between women are as close to your heart as they are to mine.   

Chor sipahee (1977)

चोर सिपाही

When I read about how Hindi movies were made in the 1970s, I can't help but be impressed by the alacrity with which the Bombay studios churned out product. Actors shuttling between three shootings a day and dubbing sessions in the evening; dialogue writers cranking out lines on set; stories resketched on the fly as actors' schedules conflicted or productions ran out of money - it's miraculous that movies of any quality were produced at all. Many a masala movie with an exciting cast and a promising first hour falls casualty to the risks of that kind of improvisational, shoestring filmmaking. The "curse of the second half" bumps more such movies than I can count right off the rails.

Chor sipahee ("thief and officer") is a textbook case of this, stylish fun masala with a lot going for it before it disintegrates into incoherence. You can feel the production becoming more rushed and careless as the film wears on. Twists in the story become more ad hoc and less clearly rendered; characters recede into the background or disappear altogether. And yet there is enough of both style and substance to redeem these sins of sloppy production, yielding sufficient reward for the masala connoisseur.

On the side of substance, Chor sipahee - like all the best masala films - hangs its wacky trappings on a profound social theme. In this case, the theme is the nature of criminality and redemption, and whether punishment or rehabilitation is the better philosophy for stopping and deterring criminal behavior. Shankar (Shashi Kapoor), a maverick but effective police inspector, believes so firmly in the principle of rehabilitation that he actually undermines attempts to punish criminals. When he encounters Raja (Vinod Khanna), an unrepentant gang leader, Shankar sees the ultimate opportunity to put his views into practice, and vows to reform Raja. Shankar is willing to go to great lengths to secure Raja's turnaround - he joins Raja's gang, renounces family ties, and apparently becomes a vicious evildoer himself. This is a subterfuge intended to show Raja the error of his ways.

Naturally, the plan is effective, and by out-badding the bad guys (including Ranjit as a gang leader who is either an Arab or peculiarly Arabophilic), Shankar convinces Raja that a life of crime is no life worth living. I would be lying if I said I understood the logic here, either of Shankar or of the script. For an alternate view, though, do see the excellent exegesis by Post-Punk Cinema Club, which finds remarkable depth and coherence in what seems to me slapdash filmmaking at its most joyously ad hoc.

On the side of style, Chor sipahee is 70s masala at its full-bore best.  From Vinod Khanna's superb high-heeled boots, to Shashi Kapoor's badass leather jacket (he is decked throughout in fantastic costumes designed by his wife, Jennifer Kendall), there's no shortage of awesome to feast your eyes on.  It's almost  a waste to write a review of a movie such as this when I don't have a DVD to take screencaptures from.  Fortunately Post-Punk and Memsaab are both on the case; see their posts for the full complement of visual goodness. 

No masala movie worth its salt is complete without an outlandishly-costumed qawwali, and Chor sipahee delivers with "Duniya hai aati jaati," in which Shashi Kapoor and Vinod Khanna, in identical qawwal outfits, repeatedly exchange places via cleverly executed backflips. This song, only about 45 minutes into the movie, also marks the last interesting thing my beloved Shabana Azmi gets to do in it. 

 

As often happens in her masala turns, Shabana Azmi is woefully underused in Chor sipahee.  She has a terrific scene very early in the movie, in which she outwits Raja while he tries to rob her father's safe.  (At this point in the film it must be admitted that Raja doesn't seem terribly smart for a successful recidivist crook.)  Parveen Babi gets a bit more substance to her role, as Raja's righteous sister Bharti.  In a delightful bit of masala melodrama, Bharti, disgusted by Raja's criminal pursuits, refuses his angry demand that she demonstrate her love by tying a rakhi on his wrist.  Durga Khote gets a marvelously filmi turn as well,as Raja and Bharti's mother.  In one terrific scene, she demonstrates her loving forgiveness for Raja by fixing him a bowl of kheer, and he demonstrates his unrepentant viciousness by refusing to eat it.  Fortunately for everyone, Shankar turns up and eats the sweet with relish, to mother's wide-eyed delight.

On reflection, especially after reading the other reviews I've mentioned, I feel I should have found Chor sipahee more satisfying than I did.   As Memsaab enumerates, it hits all the required masala elements and then some.  70s masala is a little bit like pizza - even when it's mediocre, it's still pretty good while it's happening.  Chor sipahee is a good time, even if there's not much to remember the next day.  And Shashi Kapoor does look mighty groovy when he dons appropriate threads for joining a smuggling ring:

(Thanks to Memsaab for the shamelessly purloined screencaptures.)

Kismet (1943)

क़िस्मत

Gyan Mukherjee's taut, bold drama Kismet ("fate") was a mega-hit in its time, and held the crown of the longest-running movie for more than three decades before being deposed by Sholay.  Even 70 years later, it's not hard to see why.  Kismet is fascinating, influential, and even subversive.  Ashok Kumar delivers an engaging performance as a morally ambiguous character.  The songs are stirring - and, in one case, gutsy.  And the film introduces Hindi-movie audiences to a number of devices and themes that resonate through the movies for decades to come.

Shekhar (Ashok Kumar) is an unrepentant thief.  Released from his third stint in prison, he banters with the inspector (Shah Nawaz) that he'll be back soon enough, and heads right back to his pickpocketing life on the streets of Bombay.   Soon Shekhar meets a sad theatrical performer named Rani (Mumtaz Shanti).  Rani, a former lead dancer, suffers from a leg injury that relegates her to the side of the stage, as a backup singer.   Shekhar is moved by Rani and her troubles, and gives her an extravagant necklace that he steals from the wife of the theater owner, Indrajit (Mubarak).  When this thievery is discovered, Rani feels betrayed by the man she thought was an angel.  But Shekhar is determined to care for her - he wants to steal enough to pay for a surgery that will restore Rani to her former glory as a dancer.  Shekhar escapes from custody, intending to turn himself in after carrying off one last heist for Rani's sake. 

Roshmila Bhattacharya's article on Kismet (captured and linked by Memsaaab) notes that Shekhar is not a hero but an anti-hero.   A nearly remorseless criminal, Shekhar is nevertheless a charming gentleman with a heart readily moved by the suffering of others.  Shekhar's sympathy for the sad plight of Rani's father (PF Pithawala), an alcoholic former music-master who holds himself responsible for Rani's injury, leads him to his initial acts of kindness.  And Shekhar's love for Rani drives him both to donate the proceeds of his thievery and, eventually, to go straight. There are some genuinely touching scenes as Shekhar, the criminals he associates with, and even the police inspector realize that love for a woman has inspired him to mend his ways where even multiple imprisonments could not.  Bhattacharya credits the fresh, bold, subversiveness of this character with the immense and unexpected popularity of the movie.

Much of what is moving about Shekhar emerges from the gentleness of Ashok Kumar's performance.  Writing on Indian films tends to indelibly attach certain labels to certain actors; Ashok Kumar is often heralded as a "natural" actor, but nowhere more than in Kismet is the aptness of this label apparent.   Kumar has crept up of late to become one of my favorite actors.  Here, in the rising arc of his stardom, he is no less fascinating.  His performance in Kismet has less gravitas than he shows later in his life; the performance is more tentative, and perhaps more deserving of the tag of "natural" acting.  Despite the drama inherent to his profession and the melodrama that swirls around him, Shekhar moves through the story like an ordinary man.  His young face is fresh, open, and honest - Kumar emotes, but does not play to the back of the house, does not amplify emotions in the classic melodramatic style.

The naturalness of Ashok Kumar's performance is even starker in contrast to Mumtaz Shanti, who as Rani gives a true midcentury melodramatic turn.  Her performance is classic soft-focus tragic acting, gazing moist-eyed at an imaginary horizon while delivering words of hopelessness in slow, gauzy, breathy tones. This is not a style I normally find effective; it tends to feel anemic and mealy, and here it renders Mumtaz Shanti the weak link in an otherwise superb movie.  But it is a matter of style; it is certainly of its time and place, and in the context it is not too terribly distracting.  And on the rare occasions when she smiles, as in the movie's gorgeous lullaby "Dheere dheere aa re badal," Mumtaz Shanti is radiant.

Shekhar's heroic criminality is not the only boldly subversive element of Kismet.  Rani's sister Leela (Chandraprabha) becomes pregnant by her lover Mohan (Kanu Roy), the son of Indrajit, who opposes their marriage because of Leela's poverty; he cruelly informs Rani that he can get a 10,000 rupee dowry from another girl.  Not only is Leela not punished for this transgression, but her pure heart earns her a happy ending with Mohan.   (It is both moving and fascinating that in confessing her pregnancy to Mohan, Leela cannot bring herself to say she is going to be a mother; instead, she scratches the word "maa" into a wall with her fingernail.) 

Even more subversive is the magnificent patriotic song, "Door hato aye duniyawalo, Hindustan hamaara hai."  Bhattacharya's article claims this aggressively nationalistic and anti-colonial song got past British censors because the only nations it identifies by name are Germany and Japan, Britain's enemies in the war which was then raging around the globe.  This seems too facile to me; that one line doesn't erase the otherwise obvious pro-independence message of the song (whose set features an enormous map of pre-Partition India).  Perhaps the censors were somewhat sympathetic to the cause of independence; or, perhaps they really were too complacently paternalistic to see the song as a rabble-rousing threat. 

 

Finally, Bhattacharya credits Kismet with introducing Hindi cinema to a number of tropes and themes that resonated so with Indian audiences as to become a staple of Manmohan Desai and other filmmakers throughout the years.   Principal among these is the backstory of Indrajit's wayward son, Madan (Mehmood in his first role!), who disappears as a young boy and is reunited with his family at the movie's end, identified through such devices as a tattoo and a locket, which are now masala clichés.  (No points to the seasoned filmi fan for guessing which character Madan grows up to be.)  It may be correct that Kismet marks the first time such a story was presented in an Indian movie.  But given the strong cultural resonance and enduring popularity of such concepts, it's difficult to believe that they don't have their origins in older stories that are woven into the tapestry of India's many cultures.  Isn't Karna of the Mahabharata raised apart from his brothers, only to learn of his true parentage as an adult? 

Even if it does draw on earlier sources, though, Kismet clearly blazed a path that thrilled audiences and that filmmakers returned to for decades to come.  Shekhar is a model for numerous filmi incarnations of the rogue with a heart of gold (surely also an ancient archetype).  For instance, a scene in which he pleads with the inspector to release him - asking for 48 hours to save Rani with a promise to turn himself in -  is nearly quoted in Tezaab with Anil Kapoor.  There must be countless other references over the past 70 years, direct and indirect, to this fascinating and influential  movie. 

For information on how to watch Kismet with subtitles, see Memsaab's post about the movie.