Filmi Geek

Hum kisise kum naheen (1977)

हम किसीसे कम नहीं 

Dir. Nasir Hussain

A certain kind of moral ambiguity can make for a very entertaining filmi hero.  In Deewaar, Amitabh Bachchan's character runs a vast criminal enterprise, but his heart is so torqued and so palpably in the right place that he remains likable and sympathetic. In lighter movies, too, a roguish hero can have a strong appeal, like Vinod Khanna's thieving character in Parvarish.  Some kinds of bad acts, though, push a character into irredeemability, even if the film doesn't mean to.  In a post called "Shashi Gone Bad" I wrote about the horrible Shashi Kapoor hero of Chor machaye shor who throttles and threatens to rape his girlfriend and yet seems meant to maintain the sanctimonious high ground of the film. 

 

It is similarly weird and questionable behavior from a nominally charming hero that tarnishes Hum kisise kum naheen ("we are no less than anyone"), an otherwise quite enjoyable masala entertainer by Nasir Hussain. After Rajesh (Rishi Kapoor) learns that a travel belt full of diamonds was stolen from his father while the poor man lay dying on the floor of a men's room, Rajesh hatches a plot to recover his purloined treasure.  Rather than just steal the diamonds back, he schemes to kidnap the culprit's daughter and demand them in ransom.  Being kidnapped is evidently insufficient trauma for Kajal (Kajal Kiran), who is of course completely ignorant and innocent of her father's crime.  To get close enough to Kajal to nab her, Rajesh lies about his identity, pretends to love her, and seduces her into falling for him.  In short, this hero is a narcissistic jerk who doesn't much consider whose heart he breaks or whose trust he betrays, as long as he gets his diamonds.

 

Kajal takes it coming and going, too. Before she rebounds to the deceiving Rajesh, Kajal first falls for Sanjay (Tariq), who, unbeknownst to Kajal, is the long-lost childhood sweetheart she has been pining for.  (More precisely, Sanjay is her childhood fiancé; another less-than-ideal aspect of Hum kisise kum naheen is its glorification of a creepy child marriage.)  Sanjay knows full well who Kajal is, but he forgoes several opportunities to reveal his identity to her.  This affords the film a few more angry misunderstandings and fisticuffs than are strictly necessary.  I lose sympathy for Sanjay when he grabs Kajal by both arms and roughs her up, shouting something like "sun le Kajal! Mujhe kuch kehna hai!"  He could instead have perhaps not manhandled her at all, and just said something simple and straightforward, like "main hoon Sanjay."

 

But that is an awful lot of words of complaint about the storyline of a movie that is at its heart a vehicle for fabulous R.D. Burman songs and Rishi Kapoor in a spectacular array of wackadoodle outfits.  The feathered (or is it furred? it's hard to tell which, but it sure is muppety) jumpsuit of "Bachna ae haseeno" is especially terrific.

 

 

This is the sort of thing we watch 70s Hindi films for.

 

Both Rajesh and Sanjay just happen to be professional performers, which allows for the bounty of this song medley, set at the "All-India Pop Competition," the title of which event Rishi Kapoor delivers with a delightful pop! indeed.  Beth and I agreed we want front-row tickets to the All-India Pop! Competition.

 

 

Wakow!

 

And what Rishi Kapoor movie would be complete without a qawwali? The title song of Hum kisise kum naheen is as great a filmi qawwali as any, with bonus Zeenat Aman. 

 

 

Bonus Ajit, too.

 

Zeenat Aman's character appears to have dropped in here from the next movie over, one in which she is spirited off to London by her family, engaged against her will, and makes a dramatic eleventh-hour escape on the eve of her marriage to return to her true love, Rajesh.  It sounds like a pretty good story, doesn't it?  In Hum kisise kum naheen, though, it is told in hasty exposition, tacked on so Rajesh can have a girl that he doesn't have to borrow from Sanjay. No matter; whatever narrative expedience it takes to cram Zeenat and that qawwali into a movie is well worth it.

 

There is also a little bit of pretty good comedy (more, if you like diarrhea jokes), including a masterfully-timed entrance by Tariq that breaks a tense early sequence in which a gloriously wigged-and-beared Amjad Khan (you know it's him because of that voice) stashes the purloined diamonds. Kajal's bodyguards are a hoot too, in a bizarre way, four identically-dressed bald men whom I compared to Oompa Loompas, and Beth compared to Mom's idiot sons from Futurama. The Swimming Pool makes an appearance and so does a little gratuitous Tom Alter.  So even though Rajesh isn't the most lovable hero ever, and the child marriage stuff is hinky, these sins can be overlooked in the fun of the movie's rewarding individual moments.  The first two-thirds are better than the last third, for sure, but only a select few masala flicks never flag at any point.  A recent commenter to this blog noted that the combination of Nasir Hussain and RD Burman reliably yields decently fun masala with very groovy tunes. And if you like that sort of thing (which I do) then Hum kisise kum naheen does not disappoint. It pretty much delivers what it says on the package.

Shuddh Desi Romance (2013)

Dir. Maneesh Sharma

It is difficult to gauge the success of a movie if you cannot discern what it set out to do.  Shuddh Desi Romance ("proper Indian romance") might want to be yet another manchild-finds-maturity-through-love tale.  It might be aiming for tart, frank commentary on modern - read, sexual - relationships between young people  And it might be, as its title suggests, a straight-up romance.  The muddle of all these narrative approaches yields a movie that is, unfortunately, confused and unenengaging.

Moreover, Shuddh Desi Romance commits the same error as Wake Up Sid - it teases us with an interesting, agentive female character, and then expends most of its time and focus on the far less compelling young man in the story.  Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra) lives alone, supports herself, and forms (and ends) relationships on her own terms.  Raghu (Sushant Singh Rajput) is mostly a horny dumbass; reasonable minds can perhaps differ on how cute and charming a horny dumbass is as a filmi hero - the industry sure thinks audiences love them - but I've had more than my fill of the archetype, thanks very much.  

Trudging out yet another clueless manchild instead of developing an actual character is the least of Shuddh Desi Romance's missteps, though.  When Gayatri leaves Raghu's life for a while, the narrative remains with Raghu.  Eventually, of course, Gayatri returns to the story - but we aren't shown what she does during that time.  How much stronger this movie would have been, had it followed the trajectories of both characters.  Each of them begins with a warped view of love - Raghu's simplistic and idealized, Gayatri's damaged and cynical.  Shuddh Desi Romance at least attempts to show how Raghu's attitude toward love changes.  (At least, that is a reasonable guess at what it's getting at with his lurching from relationship to relationship.  None of the narrative is especially coherent.)  The film should have examined Gayatri too, her backstory, and the time during her absence.  Instead, it tries sleight-of-hand, substituting the depiction of sexual liberation for actual narrative substance.  Gayatri doesn't need a personality - she's a totemic Modern Girl.  You can almost hear the filmmakers congratulating themselves.

With this focus on Raghu, this film once again turns a romance story into a story about a boy - and he is a boy with no depth at all.  His flailing about with Tara (Vaani Kapoor), the inexplicable girlfriend at the other vertex of the inevitable triangle, ranges from dull to painful to watch.  Raghu rebounds, and then rebounds from his rebounds, all the while sure that this time he's really In Love (TM).  Tara's motivations are even less clear.  At first she seeks revenge against Raghu for jilting her early in the film, but then she falls for him for real.  Tell me you've never heard that trope before - and tell me it makes any sense at all.  As is so often the case in films like this, one is left to wonder what not just one but two seemingly intelligent and free-thinking woman see in this overgrown twelve-year-old.

Shuddh Desi Romance isn't all bad.   Despite the characters' unusual, and weird and unexplained, disconnect from any friends or family, both Gayatri and Raghu have a father figure in the jolly Goyal (Rishi Kapoor).  Kapoor continues to have the time of his life in supporting roles like Goyal, and it is a pleasure to watch him laugh and chew scenery and give bemused, affectionate advice to the film's confused principals.  There is also occasionally trenchant commentary on love and heartbreak, delivered by the characters in fourth-wall-breaking sessions chatting with the camera, in the style of reality-show redux.  These are cute, and together with Kapoor's scenes, are Shuddh Desi Romance at its best.  There are also some sweepingly beautiful shots of Jaipur, the film's unusual setting.  The story as a whole, though, is a slapdash, jumbled treatment.  The tale's shallowness would be forgivable if it were one of several vignettes in an ensemble movie like Salaam-e-ishq.  On its own, though, there is not enough coherence to convey any depth of meaning, and not enough substance to satisfy. 

 

Pancham Unmixed (2008)

Dir. Brahmanand Singh

About ten years ago, before I ever watched a Hindi movie, I bought a CD called The Rough Guide to Bollywood - a brief compilation of hits spanning five decades.  I had been interested in pop music from all over the world for some time, and often turned to the Rough Guide series when I wanted to explore something new to me.  I had at that time only heard classical Indian music, and did not know what to expect from this CD.  I loaded the music onto my MP3 player and took off for work.  Then, I had a religious experience. 

The first song on the CD was R.D. Burman's legendary "Dum maaro dum."  By the time Asha Bhosle's first few notes danced into my ears, my entire musical universe was blown open.  I had never heard anything like this before, such a mind-blowing bend of Indian sounds with western.   The song is just two and a half minutes long, and in that brief time, I was hooked.  I listened to the tune over and over again before I even got to the rest of the compilation.

I do not have the vocabulary to put into words just what it was about "Dum maaro dum" that made an instant fan out of me.  Fortunately, in Brahmanand Singh's documentary Pancham Unmixed - Mujhe chalte jaana hai, you can hear from lots of folks who do.  In interviews with R.D. Burman's contemporaries, colleagues, and friends, the film paints a vivid picture of Burman's personality and process.   Even better than that, though, are the interviews with the new generation of music directors so profoundly influenced by Burman's innovations.  These are deliciously technical.  It is a treat to hear the likes of Shankar Ehsaan and Loy, Shantanu Moitra, and Ismail Darbar talk shop about what made Burman's music so different, unleashing their tabla bols and losing themselves in contemplation of Burman's rhythms and melodies.

The interviews with Burman's contemporaries are fascinating as well.  Musicians who worked with him, such as Bhupinder Singh, Louis Banks, Pyarelal Sharma, and of course Asha Bhosle, describe his composition process and give a fascinating view into his prolific and creative mind.  Kavita Krishnamurthy speaks reverently about his direction, the way he gently extracted exactly the performance he wanted from his singer.  Many more - Gulzar, Shammi Kapoor, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and others - weigh in to praise Burman's skill  as a composer and warmth as a friend.

Indeed, there is no shortage of effusive praise in this film, which is however somewhat light on biographical details and very light on criticism.  Pancham Unmixed tells a few stories from Burman's life, but the focus is always on his music.  Asha Bhosle describes meeting him for the first time when she was working with his father; he was then a skinny boy of fifteen eager to soak up every bit of music that he could.  But the film does not even mention their marriage, some twenty-five years later. 

Likewise for any less than reverent commentary on Burman's work.  R.D. Burman is, fairly or not, infamous for generous borrowing of melodies from foreign sources. Most of these uses are inarguably transformative, and many were done at the insistence of directors or producers, so to mention them is not an automatic indictment of Burman or his creativity.  Nevertheless, any overview of Burman's career should at least address them head-on.  Pancham Unmixed errs a little too far on the side of coyness, mentioning this aspect of Burman's fame but sweeping it under the rug with an embarrassed smile - Usha Uthup's embarrassed smile, to be exact, as she dismisses any question of originality with the tired old assertion that no music is ever truly original. 

Then again, Pancham Unmixed does not really make any pretense to objectivity - it is a paean, a eulogy, and a tribute, and as such, it need not dwell on anything other than praising and reverently memorializing the legend of its subject.  Viewed in that light, it is a terrific watch for anyone who appreciates classic Hindi cinema and its music.  And since the music of R.D. Burman was, for me, the overture to a great adventure with both, the affectionate memories of a score of Hindi cinema's greatest artists makes for a very enjoyable story indeed. 

Pancham Unmixed is available for rent or download from iTunes and a few other online services as well. 

Hasee toh phasee (2014)

हँसी तो फँसी

Dir. Vinil Mathew

Before I launch into gushing praise for Parineeti Chopra - and believe me, I am fully sold on this fearless, appealing young actor - there is something else that needs to be said about Hasee toh phasee ("she smiled, so she's snared"). 

I would wager that when Sidharth Malhotra was a boy, he wanted to be Shah Rukh Khan when he grew up.  He clearly studied him hard, practiced the moves, executes them faithfully during song sequences.  He has the tight-lipped dimple-forcing smile down cold.  He can reproduce that playful arch-the-eyebrow, bobble-the-head swoony smile when dancing with a pretty girl.  He arches his back and flings his arms at just the right angle.  But there is a crucial difference between his Nikhil in Hasee toh phasee and Khan's romantic heroes:  Nikhil is a nice guy.  Not a smarmy, arrogant jerk with an alleged heart of gold.  Not a stalker or a deceiver, not full of himself, not dripping with confidence that all he has to do is stand there and wait while the girl-du-jour runs trembling into his arms.  Nikhil is just a genuinely sweet fellow trying hard to do the right thing. 

Nikhil is different from many more recent romantic heroes, too.  He is not a man-child in need of the taming influence of a more mature partner, like Ranbir Kapoor so often renders (e.g. Yeh jawaani hai deewani, Wake Up Sid).  He is not sullen and too serious, waiting for a manic-pixie-dream-girl savior to teach him how to loosen up, like Shahid Kapoor in Jab We Met.  Nikhil doesn't have all his stuff together - his business ventures are false starts that leave him begging for funding in increasingly bold ways - and he has an overdeveloped sense of loyalty that keeps him stuck to his fiancee Karishma (Adah Sharma), never responding in anger even when she says unconscionably cruel things to him.  But Nikhil is unusually calm, genuine, and sweet for a filmi hero.  You don't have to dig past any grating boys-will-be-boys personality traits to find the creamy center.  That fact alone makes Hasee toh phasee refreshing and pleasant.

Enter Meeta (Parineeti Chopra), a socially inept, chemically altered, peculiarly intelligent woman, and indeed the unlikeliest filmi heroine.   Meeta is damaged in a variety of ways, some more vaguely specified than others.  She may have a history of drug abuse - the characters who make this assertion might not be the most reliable interpreters of her behavior - but at any rate she is, in the film's present, dependent upon a cocktail of antidepressants that she prescribes herself.  Forgery, kleptomania, and financial shenanigans all appear on her resume, but Meeta is also evidently a brilliant, if unconventional, chemical engineer.  This is sort of the character who, usually, is at best a comic sideplot, the heroine's weirdo college friend - but here, she is the lead. 

She is also profoundly lonely.  In exile from her family and her country for seven years, Meeta is starved for compassion.  She has suffered verbal abuse that is so intense as to be hard to watch, shredded by an overbearing uncle while other family members look on; no one stands up for her (until finally someone does).  These scenes exemplify the sneaky richness of Hasee toh phasee, the moments in which it conveys a great deal in a relatively subtle way.  Though it only happens twice during the film, the non-response of Meeta's family members suggest that this uncle's verbal sledgehammer threatens all of them with some frequency, bullying them into silence.  And it helps explain a little of Meeta's symptomized peculiarity.

In short, Meeta is a character with a whole lot going on.  And Parineeti Chopra internalizes this many-tentacled beast of a backstory, rendering a performance that is vulnerable, sincere, and extremely appealing.  Chopra throws herself into such unconventionally weird and likeable characters with great fearlessness, and it makes her an actor I want to see again and again.   She showed it in Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl and shows it again here:  a willingness to sacrifice glamor for the sake of telling a good story about a very interesting young woman. 

Nikhil is all but overwhelmed by Meeta's weird intensity, compelled by compassion and affection to take care of her, offering her the friendship and sympathy she obviously craves without understanding that need herself.  And likewise, Sidharth Malhotra is all but overwhelmed by Parineeti Chopra.  Whether attributable to good direction or his instincts as an actor - it is hard to know which, in just his second film - Malhotra has the good sense to get out of Chopra's way, to let Meeta be the bigger personality.  Malhotra gets first billing but Hasee toh phasee is Parineeti Chopra's movie. 

And it is successful; often funny, often very touching, with just the right mixture of humor and yeh-shaadi-nahin-ho-sakti type melodrama.  It is not without warts; Chopra's nervous tics might be a little overdone for some tastes, and the pace flags a little bit in the last third.  The technobabble around Chopra's engineering project is a little silly, and Nikhil's quest for funds is perhaps not that well thought out.  But these are, for me, small quibbles with a film that is a solid effort for first-time director Vinil Mathew.  It advances the territory staked by the likes of Jab We Met and Band baaja baaraat, a satisfying exemplar of a newer breed of romance with substantive female leads and male leads displaying traits other than manic energy or unaccountable arrogance.  I'm ready for more.

Sahib bibi aur ghulam (1962)

साहिब बीबी और गुलाम

Dir. Abrar Alvi

When I visited Calcutta late last year, I enjoyed a historical walking tour through the northern neighborhood that was once the center of the city's great Babu culture.  Calcutta's Babus amassed great wealth while serving the colonial government through the 19th century.  They also established some of the defining literary and artistic traditions of Calcutta.  And in the sunset of their era, the early 20th century, some of them quite famously squandered their wealth, taking their pursuits to hedonistic extremes.

My tour took me into a crumbling, collonaded courtyard that had once been the grand cloister of a Babu's mansion.  Sahib bibi aur ghulam ("master, wife, and servant") opens in the ruins of just such a space.  The backdrop of this lovely film is, indeed, the decline of the great Calcutta culture of the Babu.  The household of the Chaudhary brothers, Majhle Sarkar (D.K Sapru) and Chhote Sarkar (Rehman) evokes the stories I heard on my tour about Chhatu Babu and Lalu Babu; like these real-life emblems of Babu excess, the Chaudhary brothers host pigeon races and stage elaborate wedding celebrations for their cats.  By the film's end, the Chaudharys have squandered it all, yet they cling to their rituals of hedonism; in one scene one of the brothers sits in a grand parlor empty of all rugs, art, and furnishings - except for his hookah.

All of this gaudy grandeur is shown through the everyman perspective of a young bumpkin called Bhootnath (Guru Dutt).  Bhootnath arrives fresh from the countryside, gawping in disbelief at the vastness of the Chaudhary household, at the ceaseless bustle of its comings and goings, at the very idea of women not hidden in purdah.  Guru Dutt plays Bhootnath broadly, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, but also very winningly.  The film hints at some of the major social changes of the time, such as the growing nationalist movement or influential new religious philosophies.  But these notions are kept fairly vague, just out of sharp focus, as they would be to the childlike Bhootnath even as he moves in their swirling midst.  There is a sweetness to Bhootnath that stops just short of being cloying.

Bhootnath's boss's daughter, Jaba (Waheeda Rehman), sees his innocent charm too. Jaba is a delicious character, sexy and bold and youthful, yet free of the off-putting excess of girlishness that weakened Waheeda's ingenue in Bees saal baad.  The pleasing tartness with which she teases Bhootnath makes for some of the most delightful moments of the movie, like the adorably playful song "Bhanwara bada nadan hai."

 

 

 

Bhootnath matures considerably in the course of the film, growing in confidence and sophistication, and his relationship with Jaba changes too over this time. Yet he does not lose the freshness, the hopefulness, the almost sense of wonder that makes him such a likable character. This is not the brooding, tortured artist of Guru Dutt films like Pyaasa and Kaagaz ke phool.   It is Guru Dutt in a sweeter, gentler avatar; more like Bahurani.

 

As engaging as the dance between Bhootnath and Jaba is, though, Sahib bibi aur ghulam is arguably Chhoti Bahu's story, not theirs.  Meena Kumari is remembered with effusive praise for the performance she delivers as Chhoti Bahu, the younger Chaudhary's wife.  Neglected by her husband in favor of a tawaif who feeds his limitless appetite for saucy dance and liquor, Chhoti Bahu at first mopes around the haveli singing haunting, sad songs.  Later, she finds some solace in the company of the innocent Bhootnath. And later still, Chhoti Bahu turns to drink in a desperate attempt to earn her husband's attention.

 

Meena Kumari's rendering of the downward spiral of depression and alcohol addiction is certainly compelling and fearless.  It is also almost unbearably sad.  Of course it is sad to watch this character crumble like the plaster and brick columns of the once-grand haveli.  But more than that, it is tragic that Chhoti Bahu sees no value to her life, no use for her own existence if not to serve Chhote Sarkar and satisfy him with that service.  For reasons that the film doesn't fully explore - Chhoti Bahu hints that her mother drove this value system deeply into her psyche - Chhoti Bahu exists in a despairing twilight, obsessed with capturing and retaining her husband's regard at any cost.

 

Even the other women of the Chaudhary household question this notion that Chhoti Bahu holds, mildly berating her for wasting so much fretful energy on her husband's night wanderings instead of just enjoying the riches and the leisure to which being his wife entitles her.  Thus the message of the film is not to glorify Chhoti Bahu's erasure of self or advocate it as an ideal of womanhood.  And in not carrying that message, the film magnifies and personalizes its tragedy.  Sahib bibu aur ghulam is not a moral allegory, but a deeply intimate story about a deeply melancholy woman.  Chhoti Bahu is that much more sympathetic as a person rather than an archetype, and the sadness of her decline, even as it parallels the decline of Babu culture writ large, is that much more keenly felt.