Filmi Geek

Metapost: A milestone, and a contest

Hello folks!

(Note:  As of 15 April 2012 the contest is closed, and a winner has been drawn.  But please Like or follow Filmi Geek anyhow and tell your friends  :) 

Things are often spotty around here, but lately I've been on a tear of watching and writing.  Agent Vinod was my 195th movie review.  Three more reviews are already in the pipeline.  That means that review #200 is just around the corner - the milestone I mentioned in the title of this post.  And the contest? 

I want one of you to pick my 200th review.  

One of you can make me watch any Indian movie you want - I will review it.  Want to subject me to something you know I'll hate, just to see what I'll do to it?   Think I've neglected the work of your favorite star or director?  Frustrated by my stubborn refusal to venture far outside of the Hindi language center?   This contest is your chance to broaden my horizons.

So, here is how you enter:  Just "Like" Filmi Geek on Facebook (there's a button in the left margin of this page, down below the Recent Comments list), or follow me on Twitter. 

When it is time to watch the movie for that 200th review, I'll draw a name at random from all my Facebook and Twitter followers, and contact the winner to find out what movie he or she wants me to review.   (If you've already "Like"d or followed Filmi Geek, you are already entered.)  And in the meantime, you can connect with me on either network, let me know what you're thinking, what you're watching, what you're listening to, and - most important - what you think I should be watching and listening to. 

I want to connect with all of you.  So please don't miss your chance to direct my viewing:

• Like Filmi Geek on Facebook (use the button on the left)
• Follow carla on Twitter

... and please tell your friends.   I'll keep you posted as the fateful day approaches.

Take care,

carla (filmi geek)

The famous Raj Mandir cinemal hall in Jaipur, Rajasthan, on the night last month when I saw Tere naal love ho gaya there.

Agent Vinod (2012)

Dir. Sriram Raghavan

I am not a fan of action movies - fist fights, gunplay, and car chases just don't do it for me.  If such spectacle is knit together by a strong story, presented with a sense of humor or style, I'm willing to squirm through such scenes and appreciate the larger payoff.  Going into Sriram Raghavan's Agent Vinod, though, my expectations were low.  Genre-wise, Agent Vinod is not the kind of movie I tend to enjoy in any language.  To its credit, the movie turned out better than I feared it would be. But it lacks the sort of crackle that would make it more than a series of stunts hung on an overworn plot - and that would bring it it all the way to being a good movie. 

A Russian arms dealer is killed, and his prized merchandise - a suitcase nuke - is up for auction.  An Indian international spy, Agent Vinod (Saif Ali Khan), fresh from a narrow scrape in Afghanistan,  is sent on the trail of the weapon before it can ignite a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.  Armed only with some cryptic intelligence involving the number 242, Vinod heads to Morocco, where a rich international criminal named David Kazaan (Prem Chopra) is looking to get his hands on the bomb.  Captured by Kazaan, Vinod meets Kazaan's personal Doctor, Ruby (Kareena Kapoor), who may or may not be a Pakistani terrorist and double agent.  Vinod and Ruby's pursuit of the weapon takes them to Latvia, where an Indian officer known only as the Colonel (Adil Hussain) is working behind the scenes with Ruby.  Vinod and Ruby follow the bomb's trail to Karachi and eventually to Delhi, where Ruby must confront the truth about the Colonel and Vinod must try to find the bomb before disaster strikes. 

With its flashy gunfights, high-speed chases, and parade of exotic locations, Agent Vinod falls somewhere between the Mission: Impossible and James Bond franchises - and positions itself to be a franchise in its own right.  The plot doesn't offer much that is fresh - rogue elements get hold of a deadly weapon, handsome loner agent kills many thugs on his way to preventing World War III, ho hum.  A movie like this must rely on style to be worth seeing.  And, Agent Vinod is not too bad in this respect.  Saif Ali Khan is charismatic and looks good in slim-fitting pants.  The movie's many locations - in addition to Morocco, Riga, and Delhi, there are scenes in St Petersburg and some other locales as well - are well-shot, atmospheric and even thrilling at times.   In another nice set of touches, the movie makes several throwback nods to its 70s roots (it is a remake of a 1977 film).  Kareena Kapoor's mujra with Maryam Zakaria, "Dil mera muft ka," is one such, evoking the 70s trope of the heroine setting up the climactic confrontation by distracting the bad guy with a dance.  While far from expertly executed by Kareena Kapoor, it's still an entertaining and successful injection of nostalgic style. 

But despite these nods in the direction of style, Agent Vinod fails to deliver as it could.  As a whole, it just takes itself too darn seriously - there is not enough wit or humor to really drive the movie somewhere.  The sense of humor that created the closing credits song "Pyar ki pungi" should have been put to work throughout.  The film does show occasional flashes of cleverness  - such as the introduction of Prem Chopra's character, Kazaan, the elegant Moroccan mafioso.  Kazaan receives some news that sends him into a rage - "kill the bastards!" he orders his men, and storms into his house with fire in his eyes.  The camera shows his face change from rage to horror to sadness, and after a long moment we see the reason for his emotional turmoil - his beloved pet camel lies lame and suffering, and Kazaan  must put her down.  This sequence is flawlessly timed and wrought with both tenderness and humor - it is by far the best executed  moment of the movie.  The rare scene like this in Agent Vinod is so terrific that it only casts into focus how flat and clunky and long the rest of the movie is.

In another of the film's stronger scenes, Vinod seduces a male courier to get access to Kazaan.   This brief but excellent sequence, coming early in the movie, promises some depth - is it Vinod's ambiguous sexuality?  Is it a measure of how far he would go, what outrageous deeds he would commit, in the name of completing his mission?   But again, there is no payoff - nothing else that Vinod does is any more outrageous than what the standard interchangeable international spy character in any other number of movies would do.  It is a missed opportunity to distinguish Agent Vinod - and Agent Vinod - from the rest of the genre landscape. 

Kareena Kapoor is, as usual, serviceable as a used, and perhaps confused, free agent.  She has a few strong moments but on the whole, doesn't add much.  It might have been more interesting if Ruby and Vinod had actually joined forces and complemented each other in some way, rather than merely crossing paths repeatedly.  Alas, if it weren't already completely clear, her character's fate makes explicit that Agent Vinod is Saif Ali Khan's franchise, not "Saifeena's". 

There is more to be said about the film's ending - or rather, its three endings that seem to have been written by a committee in which each contributor wanted the movie to close on a different note.  But this review is long enough - Agent Vinod may have dragged in its last quarter, but I don't wish to do the same. 

 

 

Tere ghar ke samne (1963)

तेरे घर के सामने

Dir. Vijay Anand

On the long flights back from India, not wanting my trip to be over, I kept my head and heart there by watching a couple of Hindi movies.  Vijay Anand's Tere ghar ke samne ("Opposite your house") turned out to be an excellent choice - its postcard-perfect scenes of Delhi brought me right back to exploring that city on the first days of my trip.  I kept saying, "Hey, I was there!"   And if that weren't enough, I got a delightful movie in the mix - full of belly laughs, excellent songs, and the inimitable charm of Nutan.  What's not to love?

Seth Karamchand (Harindranath Chattopadhyay) and Lala Jagannath (Om Prakash) are bitter rivals after they buy adjacent Delhi plots at a heated auction.  Each is determined to build a house that stands taller and more magnificent than the other's.  To that end, each wants to hire Delhi's most fashionable architect, the young prodigy Rakesh Kumar (Dev Anand).  Rakesh can't say no to either man.  On the one hand, he is in love with Karamchand's lithe, witty daughter Sulekha (Nutan).  On the other, the stern, pious Jagannath is his father!  Rakesh must find a way to please both clients, while keeping them in the dark about his double-engagement.  And keeping secrets from Sulekha is a dangerous game that threatens their budding romance. 

Tere ghar ke samne, for all its levity and comedy, addresses the prime cultural conflicts that make so many of the movies of the 1960s - including Vijay Anand's other films, like Jewel Thief - so fascinating.  The tension between East and West, between tradition and modernity, is made explicit in Rakesh's relationship with his father, Jagganath, who heartily complains that Rakesh has forsaken his values of temperance and piety during his time studying in America. In the end, though, the younger generation bands together to pull a fast one on the grown-ups, forcing them to reconcile their shallow enmities.  The kids in Tere ghar ke samne do not wish to abandon tradition and follow their pleasure regardless of their parents' wishes.  Rather, they are determined to convince the parents to see things their way, acceding to modernity while remaining true to their traditional roots.  It is possibly over-reading to see a post-Partition allegory in this, but several people I spoke to in India comented that it is the younger generations who are beginning to heal the rifts of partition; perhaps Vijay Anand anticipated that phenomenon with this tale.   

Unlike Kahaani or Howrah Bridge, which evoke Calcutta as an additional character in their dramatis personae, Tere ghar ke samne does not offer a strong sense of Delhi as a vibrant city.  Its characters occupy the rarified space of extremely wealthy New Delhi, frequenting cabarets and garden clubs.  The city of Delhi is presented not so much as a living entity, but rather as a parade of famous landmarks in the opening credits, or glimpsed through windows in the background of indoor scenes.  Still, Vijay Anand puts this setting to magnificent use in the sequence shot at Qutub Minar, and especially the wonderful song "Dil ka bhanwar kare pukar".  By the time I got to Qutub Minar, the tower itself had been closed to visitors for 30 years, but I got to vicariously enjoy Rakesh and Sulekha's flirtatious, romantic climb to the top and musical descent. 

And, while I am on the subject of charming romantic songs, the movie's title song is utterly delightful - a lonely, pining Rakesh sings to a shimmering apparition of Sulekha in his glass of whisky.  The attention to detail in this song is simply masterful - in one especially wonderful moment (beginning around 1:10), the image of Sulekha reacts with a chill to an ice cube dropped into her glass.    

In Vijay Anand's Jewel Thief, just a few years later, Dev Anand feels like an aging hero, and is beginning to show a slightly creepy air - as much as I love that movie, there is something of the dirty old man about him.  In Tere ghar ke samne, though, it's clear why he is thought of as one of the most charming leading men of his era.  His Rakesh is jaunty, sweet, and earnest as he romances Sulekha.   And as Sulekha, Nutan is simply delicious.  She doesn't have a lot to do except look beautiful and flirt slyly, but she delivers both perfectly, lighting up the screen with her smile - and she does get a few good zingers in, as Sulekha resists (but not really) Rakesh's wooing banter.  The supporting cast adds a lot of richness as well.  Rajendranath is hilarious as Sulekha's soldier brother Ronny, who is big and loud and preternaturally cheerful.  Om Prakash is an absolute riot; he delivers Jagannath's pious speeches with a squeak, as if they are too much even for his copious breath.  And yet, even in all this comedic bluster, he brings a touch of poignancy to his relationship with Rakesh.  It is remarkable that such a broad performance can be at the same time subtle and moving. 

 

Kahaani (2012)

कहानी

Dir. Sujoy Ghosh

Sujoy Ghosh's outstanding new thriller is taut, compelling, and very satisfying.  Kahaani ("story, tale") careens through the living streets of Calcutta, offering a palpable sense of that vibrant city.  Toss in an engaging mystery, a female lead who is both strong and likeable, and some excellent performances, and the result is a simply superb movie.  

Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan) arrives in Calcutta, heavily pregnant, to search for her husband Arnab, who left her behind in London a month previously for a work assignment.  Arnab, she tells a young police inspector, Rana (Parambrata Chatterjee), phoned her several times a day during the first few weeks of his time in Calcutta, but then the calls stopped abruptly.  Vidya can't get a straight answer from Arnab's employer, nor from the guest house where he was staying.  Frustrated, Vidya launches her own investigation, with Rana's help.  She soon learns that her husband is a dead ringer for a mysterious figure named Milan Damji.  Vidya convinces Rana that tracking down Milan Damji will lead her to Arnab.  But her investigation of Milan draws the attention of an obstructive federal intelligence agent, Khan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), as well as other, even more sinister characters who don't hesitate to use deadly force to block her leads.  Vidya's peristence brings her into the crosshairs of thugs, contract killers, and even domestic terrorists - but the danger won't deter her from the trail of the man she came to Calcutta to find.

It is difficult to write about a current thriller without spoiling its surprises.  I cannot even name other thrillers with which I think Kahaani shares a kinship, or to which it pays explicit, deliberate homage, without giving too great a hint towards its climax and denouement. But since I want to urge all readers to see this splendid movie, I'll choose to steer clear of much discussion of the finer points of its plot.  (This is one reason I prefer writing about older films - I worry less about spoiling those!)  Many reviews I've read since seeing the movie pick at the plausibility of its details.  I find these criticisms shallow and beside the point.  Perhaps Kahaani's  twists and angles would not stand up to repeat-viewing scrutiny, but few films do.  And among the multi-layered significances of the movie's title is the straightforward interpretation that Kahaani is a story, not real life.  No matter how realistically they are portrayed, stories by their very nature reside at the fringes of credulity, exploring the improbable.   

Like its Bengali characters with their good names and pet names, Kahaani sports dual identities - it adopts the pacing and format of a slick western-style thriller while remaining a thoroughly Indian movie.  Even the movie's denouement, which practically quotes one particular Hollywood thriller, follows a climax that is set among swirling clouds of vermilion in a swarming Durga Puja celebration, and that neatly parallels the mythology of Durga - such allegory is a hallmark of a certain kind of Indian movie, and disarms the criticism one sometimes hears that modern Indian cinema is too keen on courting a western audience.  The teeming streets of Calcutta are more than mere backdrop - these are not mere postcard-flashes or scene-setting, but a strong sense of place.   The grimy alleys, worn awnings, and cobbled streets lined with tea and snack vendors strongly evoke the feeling of an Indian city, while the scenes in the city's metro and streetcars add a sort of kineticism that is unique to Calcutta, making the city a character in its own right.  A cast largely populated with Bengali actors - rather than a truckload of Bollywood stars transplanted to an exotic location - enhances that strong sense of place. 

Nearly all of the actors give terrific performances that help keep Kahaani immersive and engaging.  The movie is driven by a wonderfully physical performance of Vidya Balan who, even playing an enormously pregnant character, is smartly sexy and confident.  Her pregnant-woman waddle is in counterpoint to a kind of nervous energy, a straining fidgetiness that conveys the anxiety of her situation.   She shifts from impatience to tenderness, stern anger to sorrowful exhaustion, always broad and screen-filling, never simpering or hyper-feminine.  Female characters with grit and power, who are not bitchy and not secondary to a male lead, are rare in movies of any language and particularly thrilling in Hindi movies; Kahaani has given me a thirst for more of Vidya Balan that will take quite a few of her movies to slake.  Parambrata Chatterjee, too, as Vidya's would-be protector (Rana's good name, Satyaki, refers to a warrior in the Mahabharat who was a friend and protector of Arjun) is tender, idealistic, and sympathetic.  The only performance that verges on scene-chewing is Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the bombastic Khan; even the contract killer Bob Biswas (Saswata Chatterjee) is weirdly appealing as he offers his deferential "Namaskar" to each of his victims.   

While Kahaani, like many post-modern multiplex era Hindi films, lacks song-and-dance in the traditional mold, its soundtrack is dynamic, with songs that enhance mood and feeling when they are used.  The gritty energy of "Aami shotti bolchi" is the perfect complement to manic scenes of Calcutta's rush.  Rabindranath Tagore's pensive poem "Ekla cholo re," sweetly arranged by Vishal-Shekhar and competently performed by Amitabh Bachchan, provides a moment of calm before the film plunges into the churning roil of Durga Puja for the climax.  Like the best songs in the best movies, these add more color to an already compelling movie that is everything a thriller should be. 

Tere naal love ho gaya (2012)

तेरे नाल लव हो गया

Dir. Mandeep Kumar

Most of the time, one's impressions of a movie aren't formed in a sterile vacuum.  Your frame of mind on the day you watch it, who you see it with, the circumstances of the viewing all can affect your overall impressions of the film.  Good films can be harshly judged if watched in a dour or testy mood. And likewise, mediocre films can swell in estimation if other stars align just right. Tere naal love ho gaya ("I fell in love with you") is a mostly harmless teen romance with an uncharismatic male lead and a female lead who is at best unpolished.  It is cute and enjoyable enough, but nothing that really sticks once the curtains go down and the lights come up.  And yet, since I saw it at the famous Raj Mandir cinema hall in Jaipur on my very first trip to India, it will always be very close to my heart.  

Viren (Ritesh Deshmukh) is an earnest, hardworking rickshaw driver with dreams of opening his own tourism company.  One day, to Viren's horror, his boss Bhatti (Tinnu Anand) sells off Viren's rickshaw, and Viren loses not only his vehicle but his life savings of Rs. 60,000 he had stashed inside.  In a drunken furor, Viren crashes the engagement of Bhatti's daughter Mini (Genelia D'Souza) to a doltish rich boy.  Mini has no interest in the marriage, and sees her chance for escape, engineering her own kidnapping at the hands of the confused Viren.  Mini's plan is simple: hit up Bhatti for ransom.  Viren will recover his savings back, and Mini will keep the rest, using it to go free and find the adventures she craves.  But a sinister character (Diljit Dosanjh) has his eye on the pair. And just as romance begins to blossom between them, the kidnappers find themselves kidnapped in turn - at the hands of the region's notorious abductor-for-bounty, Chowdhary (Om Puri), who has his own reasons for taking an interest in Viren. 

Watching Tere naal love ho gaya in a theater in India, without my usual subtitle crutch, stretched my Hindi comprehension abilities to the limit.  After settling in, I found myself quite comfortable during the film's first half.  After the interval, though, the movie's setting moves from urban Patiala to the Punjabi countryside, and I had a much harder time keeping up.  The second-half dialogue is dominated by Om Puri, who lays on such a thick Punjabi accent that I couldn't understand a word he said.  The movie's plot twists, as well as its messages about love and family - to the extent it had any - were thus embedded in dialog that was mostly incomprehensible to me.  And so I don't have much to say about the movie's substance, such as it was, which neither enhanced nor detracted from the experience of watching a Hindi movie in an Indian cinema hall.

With that caveat, Tere naal love ho gaya is a light, fun, reasonably well-crafted romantic comedy.  The performances are hardly revelatory, but are more than adequate.  Genelia D'Souza, especially, shows a tremendous amount of promise in the comic aspects of the role, even if she falls somewhat flat in tender moments.  She seems to have grown up on a steady diet of Rani Mukherjee films, and approaches Rani's ability to project effervescent energy without being cloying.  D'Souza's comic control and timing are excellent for such a young actor.  In one standout scene, she washes a car with exaggerated sensuousness - her aim is to gobsmack (and ultimately con) nearby young men, and the movie conveys the success of this gambit with hilarious explicitness, as gas pumps explode out of their hands in sprays of fluid.  Genelia herself perfects the scene with a physicality that, while obviously seductive to those fellows, is just funny - not sexy - to the movie audience. 

Ritesh Deshmukh is, to me, not the most engaging of leading men.  It's hard not to imagine how the movie could have been better with someone of the same general type but with more appeal and more talent, like Shreyas Talpade.  Of course Talpade would probably have eclipsed Genelia D'Souza, and there's nothing wrong with a casting that allows her to shine.  And to be fair to Deshmukh, he holds his own in the film's pleasing songs, such as "Jeene de" (which plays over the opening credits), and "Pee pa pee pa", the obligatory wedding bhangra that is a strict requirement for any film with Punjabi characters.  He, like his new wife D'Souza, doesn't bring much to the table in tender and romantic scenes.  Like its stars, Tere naal love ho gaya is at its best when it's trying to be funny, and it does that well enough to be entertaining.