Lighting up on screen

 

This post was originally published on passionforcinema.com

"I like to think of fire held in a man's hand.  Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips.  I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking.  I wonder what great things have come from such hours.  When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."
                                                           Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged

Smoking means different things to different people. To some, it's a habit they find difficult to give up. To some, it's a way of depicting defiance. To some, it's a tonic which relieves them from stress and depression. There are also people, who smoke just for the love of it and without any reason.  And to a certain minister, it's a claim to fame.
Directors like Anurag Kashyap, Mahesh Bhatt, Shekhar Kapur are dead set against the ban. Film maker like Rituparno Ghosh states that even though he is non smoker, he likes to show his characters as smoker because smoking helps in providing depth to the character. Aamir went on record to voice his opinion against such a ban, but that was prior to Rang De Basanti got a theatrical release. Shah Rukh did a flip flop with supporting the ban earlier, but publicly going against it when the minister got personal with him. Rajinikant has promised the health minister that will not light up on screen in future. Amitabh Bachchan seems to have maintained a stoic silence on this topic.
There have been reports that some cigarette companies have lobbies in the hindi film industry, and because of that some movies have deliberate scenes of smoking.
In spite of all the controversies and hullabaloo regarding smoking on screen, hindi cinema does have some very memorable smoking scenes which leaves a lasting impression on the viewers. It's too difficult to come up with all such scenes which were brilliant, but the one's that come to mind immediately are stated below.

Ajay Devgan in Company, Gangajal and Khakee are one of the most stylishly shot on screen scenes. Smoke filled screen with the dark looks of Devgan, has a mesmerizing effect on the audiences. The pensive look with a burning cigarette in his hand reminds me of the quote, stated above, from Atlas Shrugged.

Ashok Kumar in Howrah Bridge. I had seen Howrah Bridge when I was a kid and have never managed to catch up on it since then. The smoking sequence of Ashok Kumar is one the few sequences of the film that is still etched in my memory.
Sanjeev Kumar in Trishul. For smokers, nervousness and cigarettes go hand in hand. Sanjeev Kumar had managed to come up with mixed emotions during the sequence where Amitabh Bahchcan reveals his identity. His cough after a puff of cigar, is simply mind blowing.

Aamir Khan & Co in JJWS and Young John Abraham with Ranvir Shorey in No Smoking. What a pleasure it is light up a cigarette in school's bathroom without letting your teachers and parents catch you!! The thrill of doing something despicable is irresistible at such a tender age. Lighting up the first cigarette is like losing your virginity. You are not sure whether you are going to like it, but nonetheless you are excited about it. Nothing on screen can depict the thrill with such innocence as depicted in JJWS or No Smoking.

Amitabh Bachchan in Deewaar, Don. Amitabh Bachchan can carry of any smoking scene with panache. Be it the yeh mera dil sequence wherein he puts on his thinking cap, with a cigarette in his hand or the sequence in Deewar before and after he has to face a certain death or the bidi sequence before the gowdown fight, Bachchan has managed to create a lasting impression. How I wish, that Yash Chopra had filmed a sex scene before the bedroom smoking scene.

Pankaj Kapur in sehar. The climax of sehar reminds me of situations wherein people light up a cigarette to avoid breaking down in front of others. Instead of tear flowing from his eyes, we find smoke coming out of his mouth. What a choking effect it had on the audiences. A thought of the sequence is powerful enough to force me to light up a cigarette.

Siddharth in Rang De Basanti. Siddhrath's smoking depicts nonchalance and care a damn attitude. He smokes because it's the best thing to do at that point of time. He finds smoking to be more entertaining than listening to the clatter of people around him. For him, smoking has to be the best experience at that point of time. The second half puts him in a thinking mode and the cigarette automatically disappears from his hand.

Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye – An Exhilarating Journey

Every movie that I have loved is due to the fact that I was able to relate to the characters/ incidents of the movie with me or my imagination/experiences. But most of the time, it's only in parts. Very rarely, has it happened that a movie in its entirety has appeared relatable. Its being a while since I have seen OLLO but it refuses to die out of my memory. I am not going to write about how good the acting or the plot or the cinematography of OLLO is. Instead, I will write about how I felt while watching OLLO.
When Lucky was negotiating for a scooter with his dad, I was reminded of a similar childhood experience of mine. I laughed off at that scene as it reminded me how miserable I had felt when my father had refused to buy me one. Those were the days were any kind of disappointment felt like an end of the world to me. Believe it or not, but I know some people who had consumed poison when faced with similar circumstances. Fortunately, I didn't. Today, I laugh off at any such trivialities. I would love to know the reactions of those who have experienced similar situations in real life. The love-hate relationship that one has with his parents was brought out very well.
Lucky grows up to be a thief and an excellent one at that. He cons people without regret. He cons those who are gullible and also those who in some manner have taught him how to con. Every now and then he meets an adversary in disguise of a benevolent man. And there are times when lucky starts believing himself as a khuda. But as they say "yahan to khudaoon ke bhi khuda hain". And there are situations when Lucky is being duped for huge sums of money, but all that bothers him in those circumstances is his inability of having not read through the person, rather than caring for the huge sum of money he has lost. And this seems so real.
And the best part of Lucky for me is the reason Lucky takes up the job of a conman. Many would have thought as the troubled childhood to be the reason for his becoming a conman. Heck, who doesn't goes through those emotions in childhood. For me, Lucky became a conman because he enjoyed duping people and it was his way of telling people that he runs the show. Take a bow Lucky, you indeed did what you loved and needless to add you were among the best in the business.
Lucky has friend who is more like an adversary to him. He is like a parasite who feeds on Lucky. And there is a scene where he drops him in middle of jungle at midnight. Weird it may sound, but at times I too have asked people to step down from my vehicle in the middle of nowhere. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined to watch this scene on big screen. Thanks Dibaker for everything and especially that scene.
And then there grown up Lucky and his family. The family has absolutely no qualms in accepting Lucky's money/gifts, but wants to maintain an arm's distance from him. I have a friend of mine who gave huge sums of money to his father to repair their house and no questions were asked even though he didn't have any known sources of income. And when that same person was arrested in Bangalore for duping people, his family severed ties from him. Such is the state of society we live in today. And the portrayal of the same in the movie looked dangerously real to me. Some people found it shocking, but it amused me to find my friend become the hero of the film.
Lucky for me is the journey of my life. It's the story of me, my friend, my so called friends, my society and my times. I just hoped that people around me would also feel the same. But I was astonished to find the reactions of people around me. There are very few people, known to me, who have seen this film. Not one of them has criticized this film, but no one seems to appreciate it either. People have told me that they love the film, but they don't know why they love it. For me that's worse than criticism. But I am pretty sure that there are people, other than me, who must have felt the same way as I had felt.
Thanks Dibakar, Dibakar thanks for making such a wonderful film. "Touch ho gaya main, by god"

Luck by Chance – Laughing with Hindi Cinema.

 

P.S. – This is not a review but my thoughts on one of my favorite movies of 2009. Contains spoilers.

It’s very easy to laugh at people and ridicule them. You don’t need to understand people in order to do that. You just need a bird’s eye view and a good command over language to do that. But in order to laugh along with people or rather appreciate people, you need to understand them first. When friends get along over drinks it’s almost mandatory to make fun of someone or the other. But never does it happen that you ridicule or mock at anyone. That’s how you differentiate laughing with people from laughing at people.

The same analogy can be drawn to cinema as well. Quite many times we have seen cinema been made on cinema and almost every time we see Hindi cinema being ridiculed at in such movies. Very rarely do we come across a cinema which takes an objective look at Hindi cinema’s drawback as well as appreciates the power of the Hindi Cinema to stay alive. In spite of all its insecurities and mediocrity, Hindi Cinema deserves to be applauded for its survival. Luck By Chance, one of my favorite movies of 2009, is a movie which depicts just that.

Cinema for average cine goers is all about the on screen personalities. But for every second of on screen brilliance we have hundreds of off screen people working day-night without any kind of recognition. The brilliant casting sequence of Luck by Chance is a tribute to all such people. From the costume helper, not the costumer designer, to the chai wallah to the extras to the people who move sets and so on, Zoya Akhtar wishes to recognize the contribution of all such people in the whole process. For someone who loves his product, the whole process of creating that product is much dearer than the final product itself. My favorite sequence from this brilliant casting scene happens when we see fresh posters of Munnabhai being pasted. I have spent a considerable portion of my childhood admiring the art of pasting posters on the wall. In fact, as a kid, I dreamt of becoming some one who does that. How much fun it would have been to be the first one to see the posters – or so I used to think.

“Every once in a while it happens that a role is written for a hero which gets rejected by every conventional actor. A newcomer laps it up and creates sensation. And the rest they say is history.”

Says Karan Johar to Zaffer Khan(played by Hrithik Roshan) who is the superstar who backed out of the project which Farhan lapped up.

And this can be termed as the plot of the movie as well. Luck by Chance is the journey of a new comer till he obtains stardom.

The cameos introduced in this movie are the major highlights of the movie. None of the cameos is introduced just for the sake of it. Every cameo looks justified. And my favorite is the scene featuring Saurabh Shukla and Mc Mohan. The initial promos of the movie ended with the voice over by Saurabh Shukla – “In order to succeed in this industry, you need talent as well as luck”. And for me, this voice over loomed throughout the movie. It took me a second viewing to confirm that there was no voice over by Saurabh Shukla through out the movie and it was just one scene. Another stand out cameo is the one by Anurag Kashyap as the script writer of the unconventional movie. After all he is the best suited to write unconventional scripts in Bollywood today.

It was hearting to see Rishi Kapoor finally portraying a character with conviction. Somehow, I was never able to appreciate his performance in his older movies. For me, he always used to be dwarfed in each of his movies either by his co-stars or by the music. Finally, I found him dwarfing modern day sensations like Hrithik Roshan and Farhan Akhtar. The scene where he utters “Yahan to jee property ko hi property kehte hain” is one of the most spontaneous dialogue delivery of this year.

The movie is not devoid of the typical clichés either. But what sets it apart is the fact that each of those clichéd characters has a strong resemblance with his/her real life image and never is any of those presented in an undignified manner. Hrithik Roshan is the insecure superstar, Sanjay Kapoor is the failed actor turned director and brother of a famous producer. Dimple Kapadia essays the role of someone who had to pay a heavy price in order to make a name in the industry. And this is where it differs from other cinemas of its genre.

And then there are lead characters played effortlessly by Farhan and Konkana. Even though Konkana has spent considerable time in the film industry, she looked very convincing as a struggling new comer. The conversation between Farhan and Konkana where Konkana says “Isme tumhari galti nahi, kuch log hote hi aise hain” is one of the most logical and bold conversations presented on screen this year. How often do we see the heroine making the hero realize about his selfishness and the hero acquiesce in response.

What I didn’t like about the movie was the fact that even though the movie under production was labeled as unconventional, it looked more like a typical masala film. Zanjer, devoid of any song for the lead character, was unconventional for its time and so was Baazigar – movies which were lapped by relatively unknown actors after many established actors had refused it.

Luck by Chance is one of my favorite hindi movies of 2009 and perhaps the only hindi cinema which salutes the spirit of the hindi film industry. Bravo Zoya!

Cinema – where the unthinkable becomes possible

Not often does it happen that we encounter a cinema which not only entertains you but manages to make you think about the power of cinema itself. It’s rare, very rare that you encounter moments in cinema which is even beyond imagination. For me, cinema has never been about depicting realism, although I do love realistic cinema. When you have the power to depict the unthinkable, why go for something which is obvious? And it’s not just about depicting the unthinkable, but rather making the unthinkable look possible.

Terminator – This was my first tryst with non Hindi cinema way back in early 90s. I had absolutely no idea how movies outside India looked like. And I was still a kid aged about 10 years. Needless to add, I had a tremendous amount of difficulty in absorbing the accent of the actors in it. But such was the power of this movie that I didn’t notice those things. Coming back from the future to save the present was an idea that was almost unthinkable to me at that stage. The hunter and the hunted chase sequences were taken to all together different level in this movie. The idea was survive the storm and just holding on to your life seemed like fighting the greatest battle ever fought. And we have the superhero myth too! A hero for whom you can easily sacrifice your life! In short I was enamored and blown away by each and every facet of the movie. Nothing looked imaginable yet everything looked possible. A few years later Terminator II reaffirmed my faith in the terminator series.

 

There will be Blood – Many film makers have tried their hands at adapting Fountainhead/Atlas Shrugged but no one seems to have perfected the art of portraying selfish heroes better than Paul Thomas Anderson. The greatest challenge in adapting such novels lies in creating the character sketch of lead characters – Howard Roark/ John Galt/ Hank Rearden. It looks almost impossible to depict these characters selfishly yet heroically. But TWBB did just that. Not that it’s an adaptation of these novels, but the lead character of TWBB has a strong resemblance with the lead characters of the novels. Daniel Plainview is perhaps the only character depicted on screen that is egoistic, selfish and heroic at the same time.

 

Matrix – Matrix is to my adolescence, what Terminator was to my childhood. The whole idea of creating a life in a virtual world and fighting against the program that is set to enslave the mankind looked unthinkable in this real world. Things like bullets stopping in the air, transporting between real and virtual world, fighting against a computer program looked magnificent to me. And who would have thought that learning things like flying a helicopter would become so easy one day!! And the greatest achievement of Matrix was in making those things look believable.

 

Fight Club – I am huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes comic strip series. I used love the antics of Calvin as kid and often used to wonder what would happen to him once he grows up. Little would I have imagined that Calvin would just refuse to grow up and he would remain same old defiant and non conformist kid that he used to be. Fight Club builds up magnificently on this Calvin mythology and presents a defiant, non conformist yet contemporary world of his. If going to school is biggest dread of childhood, going to office for meaningless pursuits becomes the biggest dread of his adult life. The movie is almost a tribute to the legendary character yet it creates a world that’s beyond imagination. These days, I often wonder what Holden Caulfield would be doing once he grows up. No answers yet, but till then lets celebrate the growing up of Calvin and his Hobbes.

 

Kill Bill – The story of Kill Bill can be written down in less than 2 lines and a movie of more than 4 hours was made out of it! There is hardly anything original about this movie, be it the fight sequences, the music or the story. But it is most profound amalgamation of pre existing audio and visuals. What I liked most about Kill Bill was the animation sequences. I regard most of the animation movies made in Hollywood as cartoons and I get completely put off by those films. Kill Bill provided me the first animation sequence which I really loved. Later, I went on to watch some Japanese animation movies and found those even better than the animation sequence of Kill Bill. But Kill Bill was the first time when I fell for animation. And there have been powerful female characters in movies before, but none so ruthless and powerful as the Beatrix Kiddo.

Sadly, there is not a single movie in Hindi Cinema that I can add to this list.

Inglourious Basterds - Celebrating Death

World War II was a crazy period. There are too many facts and even greater rumors present on the events that had taken place during this period. While history books are laden with eulogies of the allied forces and ignominy of the axis powers, there are aplenty rumors about the exact opposite. I had read somewhere that Tarantino never had a good time in school and that’s the best thing to have happened to Inglourious Basterds. His love for rumors and his ability to gel them with facts results in a fun ride like never before.

P.S. – This post might contain spoilers. Its almost impossible for me write about IB without giving away some of the plot details.

Masked as a war movie, Inglourios Basterds is a saga of revenge. And like every revenge story, it starts off with a massacre. Hans Landa, a colonel with the SS, has been newly commissioned in France and his job includes finding out every enemy of the state (read Jews) and exterminating them. Nicknamed as Jew Hunter, he takes great pride in his job as well as his nickname, precisely because he has earned it. In the brilliantly executed first chapter, we find Hans Landa trying to extract information from a French farmer about some missing Jews from the nearby farm. From the very beginning, almost every one in the audience knew how its going to end, but the way the scene is executed makes it a compelling watch. At the very end of the scene, when Landa is directing his officers about the hide out places to shoot at, the hand movement of his is so terrific that it looked like a musician directing his masterpiece symphony. And just when the shooting stops, we find a surviving Jew trying to make her way out of the house like a rat.

Cut to the next chapter and we find some American Jews swearing revenge on the Nazis. Never before, have I been exposed to such brutal and plain speaking Jews of world war era depicted in Cinema before. Most of the time, Jews are projected as helpless people waiting either for a benevolent man or for fate to help them out. But here we find Jews talking about revenge and I felt great pride for them. Those people land in Germany and get down with their business of Killing Nazis. Very soon their business starts booming and Nazis starts fearing them. They are nicknamed as Bastards and for most of the people around that time, they become a myth. Tarantino makes use of this psychology and creates larger than life characters out of this myth. The entry scene of Beaaaar Jew is so astounding that he looked like one of the most decorated war hero of his times.

Then there is a chapter with a scene at a tavern in the basement. And what a brilliant adaptation of Murphy’s Law it is! Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Watch it yourself to enjoy the cinematic delight of this whole scene.
The movie primarily belongs to Hans Landa and Soshanna.
Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa is THE Devil himself. He comes across as the most polite and well mannered villain ever depicted on screen. Every action his whether switching to English or ordering cream on strudel, has got a purpose. His actions in the movie are like moves in a chess board.

Soshanna is a chance survivor of the massacre at the opening chapter, but never do we find her grieving at the loss. Instead we find her ready to take on the whole think tank of Nazis at the opportune moment. She is not out there just to survive but to have her revenge too. Instead of fleeing to a Spain, she stays back in France and finally finds an opportunity to take her revenge.

There are some fantastic cinematic styles and moments in IB which I would like to delve upon.

The movie has some of best use of fantastic background score. The scene where Landa makes an entry before interviewing Soshanna starts with “hey Landa” which almost has a feel of “hail Hitler”. Just a couple of seconds of background score is enough to rattle you and you make yourself ready for the tension that follows. Same is the case with the entry of Beaaar Jew. The background score gives you a feeling of an immensely powerful and ruthless man.

The use of RED color is so strikingly beautiful and metaphorical in IB! Red is color of blood, Red represents passion and Red represents Revenge!

Death has always looked beautiful in Tarantino’s movies and IB is no exception. No one understands the concept of celebrating death better than Tarantino. The scene where Soshanna is killed is astoundingly musical and celebrates everything her life had to offer. Instead of feeling sorry for her during her death, I felt great pride for the accomplishments of her life. Even death could not defeat the purpose of her life! And such a death demands celebration.

Tarantino’s love for cinema is there in almost every frame of the movie. As a kid, I loved to watch theatre people changing the poster of their currently running movies. No one has captured such scene as elegantly as Tarantino has done it in IB. Add to it, he has a whole flashback sequence depicting the flammability of nitrate films! And then, we have the whole last chapter shot inside a movie theatre.
I am a great fan of movies like Schindler’s List and The Pianist, but IB is something that has never been seen before. For the first time Jews of World War era are portrayed as characters who can hit back. I have already seen this movie 3 times and am still in awe of the cinematic experience that I have witnessed.
If you are interested in watching a docu-drama on World War II, give this movie a miss. But if you interested in watching a MOVIE, where World War II just happens to be the backdrop, this might be just for you.

The movie ends with Aldo Raine saying “I think this might just be my masterpiece”. It’s almost impossible to better movies like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, but IB is certainly one of the most fulfilling cinematic experiences that I have witnessed in recent times. Bravo Tarantino!

In Defence of Daniel Plainview

This article was originally published on passionforcinema.com


This is not exactly a review of There Will Be Blood. This article is more in support of Daniel Plainview.

There is almost a 5 minute sequence in There Will Be Blood, which captures the essence of the movie. The scene starts off with a fire in one of the oil wells owned and operated by Daniel Plainview. Without even blinking or gaping at the enormity of the fire, we find Daniel Plainview running towards HIS oil fields. He knows that his adopted son is somewhere near the well and most of us are fooled into thinking that he is running for his son’s life. He does manage to take his son out of danger zone, but even before his son is completely out of danger he runs back again to his oil fields. And this time there is no illusion about his intent. He is out there to protect his oil fields. His oil fields are much dearer to him than his own son. This time Daniel Plainview not just takes his first son (oil fields) out of danger zone but also ensures that it is completely out of danger. We are not told how much time has lapsed but it does look considerable. Such is the intensity of the scene that I found myself running along with Daniel Plainview. The deftness and dexterity with which he handles a catastrophe of this magnitude makes you wonder, if this is man we talk about while using the word Genius.

Daniel Plainview is an oil man, and he is very proud of it. The look and posture of Plainview is such that it often gives you a feeling that its oil and not blood that runs through his veins. He reminds me of famous character Nathaniel Taggart from the fiction Atlas Shrugged. The man who started off alone guided by nothing but his own vision and succeeded against all odds.

The film starts off with a brilliant scene depicting Daniel Plainview’s quest for silver and ultimately oil. The starting scene is reminiscent of the famous dawn of man scene from the space odyssey. Much like his predecessor, Anderson is out to show that real dawn in the life of man starts off with his quest for something productive. For a good 15-20 minutes we don’t have any kind of dialogue. But the effect of those scenes is such it creates a complete character sketch of Daniel Plainview – Strong, focused and determined. This scene is also a tribute to never ending power of human spirit which has the ability to overcome each and every obstacle. But soon we are exposed to the fact that it is much easier to fight nature and natural obstacles but it’s almost impossible to fight the obstacles created by useless men who just don’t want you to succeed.

Daniel Plainview soon finds luck on his side when he is informed about an ocean of oil which can be bought at the price of quail. Overcoming all obstacles, both natural and man made, he starts drilling in this oil reservoir. It is here that he encounters his nemesis, Eli, whose father happens to own the large chunk of the reservoir.

Eli is an epitome of evil. He is all what Daniel Plainview is not. He doesn’t believe in doing anything productive. He holds power not because he is immensely productive but because he has the ability to bring down productive men on their knees. Fittingly, he is being made a priest, which was one of the first forms of government in western history.

“I look around people and find nothing worth liking”. This is what Daniel Plainview confesses to his imposter brother. Daniel liked to work and work efficiently and it seems logical that the only ability he can appreciate is excellence. But such is the state of the world around him that he encounters stupidity and self pity everywhere. In the earlier scenes, his son demonstrates the ability of an efficient and an able man, but after the accident we find that he is consumed with self pity. No wonder Daniel refuses to keep his son with him.
“Its not just that I want to succeed. I don’t want others to succeed.” Adds Daniel to his brother. Well, any sane man surrounded by stupidity will like stupidity to fail.

“And what is my sin actually? Drilling” Slowly and steadily, we find that Daniel Plainview has come to realize that he is being hated for his excellence and productive capacity. This is reminiscent of the turmoil that all the heroes of Atlas Shrugged had to go through before realizing the truth. And who has made people hate excellence. A root cause analysis will reveal that the preachers of truth and guardians of the society are the ones who have nurtured this tradition in society. Finally we find Daniel Plainview doing what should have been done ages ago - Silencing the voice of the incompetent.

A lot has been written about the technical aspect of the movie. There is nothing much that I can add to such articles. For me, every aspect of the movie like acting, writing, sound, camera work etc, is just about perfect. IMO, it’s a modern day masterpiece and I regard it as one of the best movies ever made.

I don’t know what the intentions of Writer/Director of the movie were, but to me it is a fitting tribute to one of my favorite novels – Atlas Shrugged. The turmoil of central character is reminiscent of the turmoil faced by the heroes of Atlas Shrugged. I had read somewhere that Anderson regards this movie as a horror movie. Indeed it’s horrific, more so when you find the central character being subjected to pain and suffering which he doesn’t deserve.

I have read umpteen reviews on There Will Be Blood, but could not find a single review which appreciates the character of Daniel Plainview. For me, he is how a man should be.
He might look at my face and find nothing worth liking, but I look at his face and admire the beauty of it. Such men have always been my hero and I stand in defense of Daniel Plainview.