Filmi Geek

Do aur do paanch (1980)

दो और दो पाँच

Dir. Rakesh Kumar

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.)

Raincoat (2004)

Dir. Rituparno Ghosh

Rituparno Ghosh's Raincoat is a languid commentary on love, on sacrifice, and most of all on the facades people erect when they cannot bear the harsh light of real life.  With a presentation that is more like a stage play than a film, it demands a lot of its actors.  For the most part, the film and the actors hold up well. 

Manoj (Ajay Devgan) is unemployed and in dire straits.  Desperate, he leaves his village for Calcutta, where his old school friend Alok, a successful television producer, has put in a good word for him with some of their mutual acquaintances.  Manoj's plan is to swallow his pride and visit each of these acquaintances, asking for loans so he can set up a small business.  He has one more stop in mind, though - to drop in on his old flame, Neerja (Aishwarya Rai), who left him six years before and married a man with more financial promise and security.   In one rainy afternoon, Manoj and Neerja desconstruct themselves as they spin tales for one another, catching up on the intervening time. 

Manoj and Neerja lie to one another about their circumstances as much because they are ashamed to admit the truth to themselves as they are to admit it to one another.  The titular raincoat is the film's principal metaphor for both the effect of such deception and its inherent weaknesses. It is a protective cocoon that shields its wearer from battery by the elements, but each time a character puts it on a piece of concealed truth is revealed.  Its message seems to be that the more the characters try to hide from themselves, the more likely they are to be discovered by the people closest to them. Raincoat amplifies and builds on the metaphor with others - closed windows thrown open and then closed again; broken lamps and the shifting shadows thrown by candles; fractured mirror reflections; roaches hiding in the darkness of a closed drawer.

Raincoat's premise is compelling enough.  Its theatrical style - much of the film takes place in one cramped room, and the narrative is principally conveyed through dialogue between Manoj and Neerja - is well-suited to the tight psychological study that the film endeavors to present.  It falters when, at times, the pace slows beyond even my tolerance for contemplative cinema.  And there are moments when the exposure of the stage-play approach is more than its actors can bear; Ajay Devgan wears a shroud of gloom so dense that at times he threatens to collapse inward on himself, and Aishwarya Rai's performance, which may have been aiming at nonchalance, verges instead on petulance.   

The most promising interactions are those between Manoj and his Calcutta hostess Sheila, Alok's wife - these two come much closer to honest connection than Manoj and Neerja ever do during their afternoon of elaborative fiction.  Unfortunately we are not treated to enough of Sheila; her revealing conversations  with Manoj are limited to a handful of crackling scenes.  Still, Raincoat offers enough to hold the viewer's interest in the small orbit of its characters, seasoned by lovely, plaintive songs with the poetry of Gulzar.  And its ending is both satisfying and thought-provoking - it reminded me of the ironic stories of O Henry, and I was pleased to see that inspiration acknowledged in the film's closing credits not moments after the thought had occurred to me. 

Padosan (1968)

पड़ोसन

Dir. Jyoti Swaroop

Padosan (lit. "female neighbor," i.e., "the girl next door") is a simple-minded, warm-hearted slapstick comedy that doesn't ask much of its audience, and doesn't really offer much in return.  At its heart is a dim-witted hero, his cadre of even stupider friends, a pouty, vapid heroine, and a passel of broadly-drawn stereotypes that are unfortunately more mystifying than amusing to a non-Indian viewer like me.

Simple-minded Bhola (Sunil Dutt), after reading religious philosophy, decides that at twenty-six years of age, he should be starting a family.  Casting about for a suitable girl, Bhola's eye lights on the lively young Bindu (Saira Banu), and he is instantly smitten.  He soon discovers, to his delight, that Bindu lives next door to Bhola's aunt, with whom he is staying, and his bedroom window opens directly opposite Bindu's.  Bhola's initial attempts at courting Bindu are not terribly successful, though, so he turns for advice to his friend Vidyapathi (Kishore Kumar), a spastic, paan-chewing theater director.  Noting Bindu's love of music - Bhola's main competition for her attention is Bindu's excessively amorous southern dancing-master, Pillai (Mehmood) -  Vidyapathi hits upon the scheme of hiding beside the window and singing, while Bhola performs in lip-sync - just like a film hero.  This does get Bindu's attention - at least for a while.  But there is still the dancing-master to contend with, plus Bhola's hale and hearty uncle (Om Prakash), who, unbeknownst to all, is working with a marriage broker to arrange his own match with Bindu. 

Padosan's hero is aptly named - "Bhola" means guileless or innocent - and though he is almost insufferably stupid at first, as the film wears on his naive sweetness does grow on the viewer just as it grows on  Bindu.  The best parts of the film are the songs, a bright and clever collection of early R.D. Burman melodies.  The couple of songs in which Vidyapathi backs Bhola's performance (like "Mere samnewaali khidki") are a charming send-up of the Bollywood playback convention; there is a pleasant self-referentiaity in a tune sung by Kishore Kumar, picturized on a Kishore Kumar character, who is singing it for someone else to perform.  The other standout songs include "Ek chatur naar", a hysterical musical duel between the dancing-master and Bhola (well, Vidyapathi) that pits Carnatic against the north Indian style, and Saira Banu's cheeky bathtime frolic, "Bhai battur".

Beyond the songs, though, Padosan isn't really for me.  Much of the humor derives from broad stereotyping - the exaggerated accent and mannerisms of the Tamil-Brahmin dancing-master, the paan-juice perpetually dribbling down Vidyapathi's chin, Bhola's uncle's Rajput pride - that is largely lost on me.  The rest is of the shouting-and-slapstick variety of Indian comedy that is not much to my taste.  The result, I fear, is that much of what is side-splittingly funny in Padosan is just lost in translation.  And from a purely superficial perspective, neither the hero nor the heroine are particularly nice to look at.  It was fun enough while it was happening - and the soundtrack is definitely a keeper - but it's not a film I expect to return to again and again. 

[I revisited this movie some six years after I wrote this post, and liked it even less.]

Jaane bhi do yaaro (1983)

जाने भी दो यारो

Dir. Kundan Shah

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.

The Guru (2002)

Dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer

As a white American with an obvious interest in Indian culture, I am sensitive to the stereotypes of white Americans interested in Indian culture, and I try very hard not to reinforce them.  Even so, I sometimes squirm a little uncomfortably when these stereotypes pop up in the movies.  I can't help but wonder: is that what I look like?  Fortunately, the version of the stereotype that is sent up in The Guru is so over-the-top that I didn't really have to worry.  And the film, a comical diaspora story about exploitation and love that draws on a number of Bollywood-ish elements, is a light, cute, and entertaining story.

Ramu (Jimi Mistry) is a dance instructor in Bombay who longs to be a star.  At the urging of his NRI friend Vijay (Emil Marwa), Ramu follows his dreams to New York, but arrives to discover that Vijay's tales of penthouse living and fancy cars were exaggerated just a smidge.  When a swami-for-hire passes out drunk before an appearance at a high-society party at which Vijay is working as a waiter, Ramu steps in and fakes his way through an impromptu discourse on sex and spirituality.  The ditzy, spiritually-searching socialite Lexi (Marisa Tomei) is taken with Ramu, and declares him her guru, the "Guru of Sex."  Suddenly Ramu finds he can make a ton of money by churning out pseudo-exotic sexual philosophy that rich, bored ladies who lunch will pay generously for.  But Ramu needs material, so he enlists the help of a porn star, Sharonna (Heather Graham).  Believing that Jimi is trying to break into the porn business - and knowing nothing of his spiritual sideline - Sharonna reveals her most personal thoughts and philosophies about sex and sexuality, and Jimi repackages these for his new disciples.  Sooner or later, Sharonna will find out that Jimi is using her - but not before he falls in love with her. 

The story is sort of dumb and some of the humor is a little crude, but on balance, The Guru is warm and funny, offering an unlikely love story amongst a fun and diverse collection of characters.  While there are some gems in the casting, the characterizations and performances are a little spotty.  Ramu's childlike dreamy innocence is somewhat at odds with his willingness to carry on a sexual relationship with Lexi, whom he does not seem to care for very much.  But Jimi Mistry is sufficiently cute and appealing that the inconsistencies in his character are not a serious distraction.  Lexi herself is spot-on; Marisa Tomei offers a perfect comic presentation of the spoiled rich kid who is hungering for something deeper than BMWs and penthouses, but who is too clueless and sheltered to recognize the difference between real spiritual depth and flaky trendism.  She is both a caricature and fully human.  Heather Graham's philosophical porn-star is neither here nor there, serviceable but not memorable.  There is one real treat in the cast, though - Christine Baranski, sharp-clawed as Lexi's sneering yet indulgent mother, is as delicious as she always is.

The Guru features a few musical numbers, mostly in Hindi; these are meant as tributes to the Bollywood form, I guess, and while some of them are quite good - Heather Graham is more alive in her song than she  is in the rest of the movie - others left me feeling that I'd rather watch the real thing.  The film's ending is delightful, drawing on one of Bollywood's favorite tropes - the interrupted wedding, with a couple of light-hearted surprises.

I would generally rather watch a Hindi movie than a western film inspired by Hindi movies.  Still, The Guru is a charming enough timepass, worth a watch if you happen to stumble across it.