Movie Review – Alone

Works for what it is

After a really long time, as I had some alone time on a Saturday night, I thought of reliving good old days by watching a movie, alone. While browsing through my HDD, I came across this movie called ‘Alone’. ‘Alone’ being a horror and foreign movie was icing on a cake. What better do you need than a movie titled ‘Alone’ on a day alone. The movie too lived up to the hype. It was a classic jump scare, no nonsense film with a decent twist. Only that I had to watch it into two splits, instead of one, like how the conjoined twin were split, because I seemed to have so gotten used to sleeping on time.

It was a clean movie. There is nothing to complain about it. You get what you want. It transcends boundaries and works genuinely. If the movie had been treated in the same way, no matter what the language is, it would have worked similarly. May be that’s why so many directors were tempted and make it in their language. But unfortunately, missed the point which I earlier told. The treatment, if diluted would surely would spoil the film. I’m sure in the Tamil version there would have been needless sentiments and songs and Hindi version because it had Bipasa would have hot scenes. May be that’s why originals are best. The same could be said about the director duo of Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom’s ‘Shutter’.

Like a typical template horror, the film starts with eerie title card, followed by a suspense shot on Pim’s (Marsha Vadhanapanich) birthday. Loved the Thai version of ‘Happy Birthday’ song, it was cute. Once they get to know about her mother’s illness, Wee (Vittaya Wasukraipaisan) and Pim go to Korea to see her. Pim starts to see horrific images from there, followed by doctor visit. After sometime, Wee too starts seeing bits of what Pim sees. During a chance encounter with Pim’s mother, he gets to know the real story and there is the twist.

Even though the film happens entirely in dark, a good excuse for horror film makers to not try anything new, this film, as it deals will conjoined twins, uses mirror and its reflection to good advantage. Especially loved the shot where Pim sits in front of the mirror when she revisits her house after a long time. You can feel as if there are two different people in two mirrors. As it’s in different angle, it appears as if there are two different people. But it actually is the same person with different expression, due to the angles. That’s lovely shot. Also lights and shadows were used well to get a reflection. The director knew how to use the theme well.

As I exactly knew what to expect, I got what I wanted. That’s why it’s difficult to write so genre friendly movies. It does everything as per template and satisfies. You can neither criticize not applaud. That is the reason why taking risks and going beyond regular template makes films interesting. May be if because I’ve not watched any film of late in this genre, it worked for me. Not sure, if someone who specializes films of this genre would be able to take it in the same vein as I did.

Movie Review – Capital I

An honorable attempt

‘Capital I’ tries a lot, with a capital T. The film has in genuine thoughts, great lines and makes for an art thriller. In the directors words, a psychodrama. But as a film, at least for it making, it looks as if it’s one step below. The film looks like a staircase to an actual film. There may be a lot of reasons to it, budget, technical difficulties etc. but eventually as an audience one would expect only the end product, which feels like there is something lagging. There were moments of awe but put together doesn’t do the damage it intends to.

The film starts with a couple arguing and the girl irritating him before the boy goes out of town. The first thing which stuck out was the make up or the lighting which was giving the lady, shadows or dark circles around her eyes. That was so distracting. Followed by bad acting. In fact the only decent actor of the lot was Susant Misra who acted as Professor Misra. Even he was not great but at least was better than the rest.

We get to know about a mysterious character called as ‘Capital I’. The police find an old house which was locked from inside with all windows closed, and when the police break open the door, they find no one, neither any living person, nor a dead body. They only find few papers lying, with some abstract phrases and pictures with the signature below reading ‘Capital I’. As there was no physical harm to anyone the police find the case to be unworthy. It’s a great Poirot plot, just that Amartya doesn’t take the traditional route but the philosophical route.

The film is about the talks between the Professor and Piyali (Pallavi Priyadarshini). Amartya’s forte is his words. The poems, the discussions and the drawings were top notch. If only the acting and production value was good, the film would have been more appealing. Because the actors were mostly poker faced (unintentionally) it didn’t appeal.

The film had its moments of thrill and a great climax to boast about itself but the entire angle of sex and lesbian encounters, which any director who wants to go off beat, was a put off. Wish at least the sex scenes were good.

More than the film, the articles about the film are inspiring, especially the Wikipedia page of the film. It’s amazing that with Canon 550D and kit lens and 50 mm (the cheapest of the lenses), the director was able to come up with a proper film and go ahead with what he was passionate about. It’s the same lens I have and I’ve gone nowhere. So there is no excuse. With just five people and a camera, if he can make a film like this, he surely would have only got better with time. Something which I was not able to do. Coming to think of it, I don’t even feel like making a film anymore, my passion has dwindled. May be I’d not be able to have lines and arts like this in my film but it need not be, it’s not my genre. I still could have made something unique but it never happened.

This film, more than anything, made me realize, how much I’ve missed!

Movie Review – Jailer

Where is Thalaivar heading to?

Ya ya, “Thalaivaru Nerantharam” and all is fine but what really it does apart from making a seventy year old man keep on walking in slow mo throughout the film. If slow mo is what I want I’d have rather watch Megan Fox in ‘Transformers 2’. Between ‘Jailer’ and ‘Leo’, probably the only two movies, which I thought, would’ve been nice if I had watched in theatre last year, I thought ‘Jailer’ would be better, because people were raving it. But apart from few moments which Rajini would make his own, no matter how crappy the director is, as a film ‘Jailer’ didn’t appeal. ‘Leo’ even though wasn’t great, at least had good filmmaking skills compared to this. What’s worse is even though I criticize, I enjoyed it while watching. That is dangerous.

Seeing Thalaivar in promos where he polishes his son’s shoes and gets ridiculed by his grandson, I thought the movie would have tried to create fake humility, but fortunately it was not the case. Nelson’s comic take worked. “Tiger” Muthuvel Pandian (Rajinikanth) is shown as a powerful man right from the word go, even when he is kidnapped when his son is on a mission. I must say, it was well handled. I expected, that for some time, he would play underdog and suddenly come to power but it was not the case. It might have worked better this way but would have been usual. Anyways the first part where he was not the ‘hero’ was only short lived and largely unappealing. There was not even an iota of sadness when we get to know that his son is killed. The director absolutely doesn’t give us any time to reminiscent.

Post that its usual Rajini template, only that there were three more people to walk in slow mo along with him. Even though monotonous, it all works due to the music and Rajini’s screen presence. But there is absolutely no creativity. Music is the same old, jarring, high octane pieces, which would last for the time being. One guy during some conversation casually said that Anirudh is a trending guy and not a trendsetter like Harris. There are complaints about Harris but that’s for another day. For now Anirudh’s music is working.

The crux of the story is nice, Nelson has packaged the story well with dark humor, the climax twist works, the villain is good, the cameos are good, even Tiger’s son Arjun (Vasanth Ravi) is good in whatever space he gets. I can get your mind voice, “ithuku mela vera ena da venum”. But altogether there was something missing. The film doesn’t feel coherent. Somehow Nelson and Rajini together sell this film. But we don’t get to feel for the events happening in the film. The highs are lows are ebbing. When Arjun dies, when the treasure is obtained, and all the main points in the film, we don’t feel the sadness or the elation, the characters feel. We just nod to what the actors say in that specific scene. But may be a lot many liked it because the emotion in the climax shot was brilliant, it hits the nail right on the head.

The trend of cameos are irritating. They just pull in people from different industry just for face value to sell it. We don’t get to know anything about them and absolutely no back story. We are applauding them for the stars they are and not for the role in the film. As it’s the beginning, it’s exciting but I’m sure it’s going to become a trend and soon become a cringe fest like Marvel Cinematic Universe. But I confess, the climax scene where they all light up the cigar together, I couldn’t sit in my seat out of excitement.

Movie Review – Captain Miller

An Eye Sore, Ear Jar, Misfire of a film.

Never in my wildest dreams, did I imagine a film I chose to watch in theatres, out of my own interest, would be this bad. I should have understood by seeing only ten tickets booked for the show. But thinking that it has become a trend to watch films in OTT, I thought I was in for something special. But my first movie experience in theatre for this year ended up to be a debacle. It was nothing but a star vehicle disguised in the form of corny art film, which in the end misses to be both.

The film starts with all guns blazing and ends the same way and gets our ears impaired. I was sitting in the last row of the theatre. Similar to how I was sitting for ‘Oppenheimer’ Being a Nolan film, there were lot of fan boys who were defining where to sit for optimal film viewing, film hearing experience, when to loo, how much your bladder can hold etc. This film didn’t have any such advice. I was excited for the bass at the start of the movie and even was appreciating why it’s always a terrific feel to watch film in theatres but by the end of it, I was dead and tired. I was in the state of, “sugar patient ra naanu”.

Dhanush was getting high praise for his role of Captain Miller. It’s becoming very problematic when non Tamil people judge Dhanush’s acting. They were raving about ‘Raanjhanaa’ at the time of the release. Guess Bollywood is so tuned by its larger than life hero’s that even such a normal realistic acting feels like epitome of acting experience to them. It was the same for Miller. Dhanush does nothing extraordinary.

It was very difficult to understand what the film was trying. Was Arun Matheswaran, kidnapped by Dhanush and at knife point, was made to write an artsy story with commercial elements. The film was boring and bland, for the sake of appropriate adjective. There is Dhanush, who is Analeesan or Eesa who later becomes Miller or Captain Miller. Even a fourth standard student would be able to decode what the director was trying to do with names. He’s Eesan, the great god of destruction, who would come out of myth to save the village and in the journey kills a few thousand people and gets killed a lot of his people. It’s very difficult to understand when would he side with whom, yet he’s showcased as a character with clear motives.

There were a lot of corny dialogues, symbolisms and rapturous music. Hell, even the art direction was elementary. In the end nothing makes sense. It just feels like a loud ‘Maryan’ Dhanush’s choice of heroines are great to see in instagram but they do nothing in the film. In a film where she’s supposed to be strong with arms and words, the only scene Priyanka Mohan feels at home is when she smiles. What a misfit. Velmati (Priyanka Arul Mohan), except for her name was a disaster in all aspects. Truly resonating the fact that she’s nothing but a Melugu Doll.

There were two more interesting peculiar characters, Sengolan (Shiva Rajkumar) and Captain Rafiq (Sundeep Kishan). There is one shot where the three of them join hands and do an ‘Aayutha Ezhuthu’. By that time, I was tired to even criticize. Seriously, when there was so much guns and bombs around, who comes with a sword and bow and arrow to fight. (I could only remember Hawkeye coming with his bow and arrow and making a great scene dumb in the first Avengers movie.) And that was supposed to be heroic. Is this even the guy who made ‘Rocky’. And don’t get me started with the parallels he was trying to show between the two films with the help of ammunition.

Of course action films like these come up with a certain suspension of disbelief but the whole film being so was unacceptable. How was even Dhanush dodging so many bullets in the interval, why were none shooting at Dhanush when he was surrendering? Why were all the characters so one dimensional. Why so much Deus ex machina in a supposedly noncommercial movie. And who was this guy with munda baniyan and sunglasses, who comes out to save all the main characters just in time. But thanks to him, he was the only fun factor in an otherwise dull action movie. And finally that reveal, oh my god, it was truly exhausting. What should have been like the scene where Parthiban raises hand in ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’ ends up to be like a total spoof? Is that sculpture supposed to look like Dhanush, or is it just me.

Out of three hours, the only scene which works is, when Eesa is in the army camp, Abdool Lee (Sembatta / Stephen) is criticized by one from the group getting the name. That reaction of Dhanush when he says, “enga ponalum ipdi oruthan vanthuran” was the only natural aspect of the whole film which tries to do so many things, without knowing what.

After ‘Rocky’ I was truly happy for Arun Matheswaran, so much so that, I didn’t want to immediately watch ‘Saani Kaayidham’ and exhaust his filmography. But after ‘Captain Miller’ I seriously doubt whether he has anything in him. More than anything, the film was such a disappointment.

Movie Review – Leo

An actor in fine form and a director who believes in his craft, sell this mediocre film, thanks to the sincerity.

Thanks to a lot of backlash, it took me a while to watch the film. For the hype it generated before it, I too, like many of you, wanted the film to fail. But it was surprisingly cool. Good that I already got to know about the fake flashback and boring second half. I was prepared for a snooze fest. But I was happy how Lokesh made an ambitious project, within his limits, in a blockbuster format movie. Lokesh and now Nelson, even though are lifting the standards of blockbuster genre with their way of handling cinema, it’s sad to see that they are inspiring a bunch of youngsters in just making a good film as a road to a big star’s project.

The film starts with an amazing Sandy and his gang stealing a house. Their whole part was done superbly and left to surprise as what they’re capable with, may be in some other film of LCU. Of course the looks and the way Sandy behaved was a template psycho character, yet it still worked. In fact the whole first half worked like a charm. It’s lovely to see how Lokesh is making a genre of his own, with this fake identity thing. He makes the story with a lot more respect than other masala filmmakers do.

The much coveted Hyena sequence happens next. It’s a reasonably well choreographed sequence. But don’t know why Vijay never gets his wig right. VFX was top notch. There are bound to be comparisons with the grizzly bear sequence of ‘The Revenant’ (a film and a sequence which I didn’t like) but it’s understandable that they couldn’t go to the level of that, with the limited expertise and budget available. Overall the sequence was a fair deal and how it acted as a setup for many things in the movie, about Parthi’s (Vijay) affinity towards animals, Joshy’s (Gautham Vasudev Menon) shooting skills, Siddhu’s (Mathew Thomas) javelin skills etc. Only because of that scene, in the second half when Siddhu throws the Javelin at Parthi, it was that powerful, otherwise it would have been bland like Andrea with the bow and arrow in Master. Also loved the suddenness of the title card post. It was short and sweet.

Vijay was at his charming best. I’m afraid I’m becoming a fan of him. I hate to confess but he’s aging like a fine wine. In this film as a father of two kids, his chemistry with them were amazing. Especially the “Karu Karu Karupayi” sequence, he absolutely owned it. Both Trisha and her character was dull and boring and there was absolutely no chemistry between the two of them, which was sad to see. It’s really difficult to be a woman testosterone filled Lokiverse. The only kind of women which would appeal in his films would be like that of Agent Tina (Vasanthi).

The highlight of the film would definitely be the fight sequences, whether or not it was clinical, whether or not it worked for you, each one was taken with so much effort and sincerity, every fight had a theme. It was like watching Shankar film’s song. Even though by now it had become redundant, he was the first person who invested (not just the money) on songs. But hopefully this concept doesn’t get beaten to death and become an excuse for bad writing.

By the time, the glass breaks and we hear the “Badass”, Lokesh almost sells the film, with the help of terrific Vijay. Anything and everything which happens in the film post that (except for that click of a tongue to call Subramani) is him trying to have a conclusive end to the film. The flashback was a disaster, especially as soon as Elisa Das (Madonna Sebastian) appears in the film. How are we supposed to sympathize for a character we had just seen? And Leo escaping the place too wasn’t convincing.

It’s followed by few high octane sequences and one sudden breakdown of Parthi in front of his wife. In cricket, you can say how well a batsman is in form, by the sound of ball striking the willow. That scene felt like it. Vijay doesn’t do that type of sequence anymore. There he doesn’t cheat only his wife but us too. Such terrific acting. The character reveal in the end was just ‘meh’ but how Lokesh has cleverly found out what works for Vijay and what doesn’t is shown in the end by his supposed comic take in the dinner table and his hesitancy in picking the call in the climax. A similar sequence would be there in ‘Master’ where he’d with his students and climb the stairs saying, “apdi enatha than da pesitu irupanga”. Its minute things like these which Lokesh has extracted from Vijay, which makes the film nice.

I hate to believe that he’s adding songs just for the market. I guess he too enjoys it. It was okay for “Pathala Pathala”, even though unnecessary, everyone were happy to see Andavar having his due of fun but “Naan Ready” was totally unnecessary and cringe. I don’t want to read too much into his idea of drug free society and LCU. It just feels like the message in ‘Thulluvadho Ilamai’, where they show everything and ask them not to do.

Movie Review – Ford v Ferrari

Vrooming to Victory

The first impact the movie would have, would be on your ears. Especially, if you had watched the movie with earphones like I did. Either you’d be enjoying the sound of cars whizzing from one ear to another like it happened with “Omahaziya” in your Sony Walkman or you’d be complaining of pain in your ears. Whatever may be the case, like the imaginary sparrows spinning around Tom’s head when Jerry makes him hit any roadblock with his mischief, the imaginary sound of the elite cars of the sixties would be buzzing in your head.

I’m a big fan of racing games, even though I’m not good at it. Just like how I like Mathematics even though I don’t get good marks in that subject. In Need for Speed, there used to be a stage where we would get slow cars and great environment. It would be easier to handle the cars around the corners, it doesn’t skid and other cars don’t cut corners every now and then. That used to be my favorite part of the racing game, I couldn’t proceed post that. Ford v Ferrari gave that vibe. This film would have felt lot more clinical if it had used the color of that era. Because if someone sees the film just out of the blue, by ways of film making, no one would be able to tell the time period. It feels recent. But I do understand that it’ll make the film artsy if made that way.

It was a film which was long impending in my list and just like anyone I thought it’d be a movie about two giants and their fights. When I started watching it, I understood it had two leads. I thought I was right. At least till the first half an hour of the movie I was of the opinion that one person out of the two would go to the other company and that’s what the film is about. But the director James Mangold cleverly doesn’t do that. A nice way to mislead the audience right from the way posters, title etc. were made.

The movie starts with Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) retiring from racing due to a health issues. It’s lovely to notice his composure. What I thought would be about his revival story or rage wasn’t there at all except for the one scene and my favorite one, where he takes Henry Ford 2 (Tracy Letts) for a spin. Reminded me of the story Lokesh Kanagaraj told as an idea for ‘Vikram’, where the lion says to the fox, “even though I’m old, I’m still a lion”. Apart from that Matt Damon doesn’t have much to do.

The movie is about Ken Miles (Christian Bale) entirely. May be that’s why Christian Bale would have agreed to do it. Bale was phenomenal in the movie. It’d have been a treat to his fans. Even for a non-fan like me, it felt like one of his best performance, if not the best. I generally feel he overdoes his role and spoils the flavor of the movie. But here it was to the point. From the posters I thought it’d have been Matthew McConaughey. Just imagine if the same movie had been made by Scorsese or Fincher and had McConaughey and DiCaprio as leads. It’d have been truly legendary.

There is no risk taken in the movie and that’s why the universal impact and that’s the reason the movie suffers from normalcy and doesn’t become a legendary movie. It’s a movie which anyone would like if they watch but if you ask me whether it’s a must watch movie, I’d say rather not, because the same feeling would be got from any movies of this genre like may be say a ‘Real Steel’. That’s the problem with making risk free movies. It’d be neither like a guilty pleasure movie like a ‘Death Race’ or ‘Fast and Furious’ nor like a cult movie like ‘Baby Driver’. It’d come and go, entertain, but wouldn’t impact.

Movie Review – Water

This one’s more on the surface level

Probably the least impactful movie of the trilogy, which could be attributed due to lot of factors like, the gap between the movies (this being the longest between two movies in the trilogy), the actors or even due to the compulsion of completing a trilogy. This always happens when you want to make a package of impactful movies. One out of it drifts away from the purpose. Rather than counting as a three different stories, a blue print should have been created to understand what happens as part of this universe. Having said that, the film is still an important film. May be for the one who see this as a standalone film or see this as first film in the trilogy, it’ll hit you a lot harder.

The first thing which strikes about the movie is the clarity of visuals. The first couple of movies ‘Fire’ and ‘Earth’ didn’t have the clarity but rather had a certain bit of rawness to it. ‘Water’ had a vibe of foreign film, even though it was made in India by an Indian. Technically, not Bollywood. It gives a very award film flavor. Not that I complain but when that happens, we tend to distance ourselves from the movie. ‘Earth’ in spite of having a superstar like Aamir in the film, lures us in the film.

The opening act of a small girl being pushed into a widow house by undergoing a painstaking process would wrench any heart. Anyone watching the film would instantly fall in love with young Chuyia (Sarala Kariyawasam). It’s difficult to not empathize with her. Chuyia is a dream kid. Even though she undergoes such rigorous act of torture and being sent away from home, she hardly cries. She does complain and shows her attics and in the process makes us afraid whether she’d get caught by the chief of the house, Madhumati (Manorama), but luckily she doesn’t.

Kalyani (Lisa Ray) remains as the only woman with hair in the ashram because Madhumati uses her for prostitution so that the ashram would get enough money to run. Shakuntala (Seema Biswas) on the other hand is torn between two worlds. She does what she had to do but then she thinks whether what she’s pushed to, is fair. Together all them form a unique combo with Chuyia being a focus point.

I would have loved the movie if it had talked about Chuyia completely. Rather the main focus shifts around Kalyani (Lisa Ray) and Narayan (John Abraham), who was clueless in the movie. Of the three movies and the ‘n’ number of characters, only John Abraham’s character feels so foreign. He doesn’t gel with the movie at all. He looks like postcard rebel who doesn’t create any impact. The romance between the two and the twist in the end too doesn’t work. Generally each one of the Deepa Mehta’s movies have a great sex scene but in this movie, even that fails.

The only good aspect of the movie is, it doesn’t dramatize any of the sequence. It doesn’t see the movie by shock value. Whether the scene where Chuyia is taken to prostitution or Kalyani’s death. It could have been easily made horrific but Deepa Mehta chooses the other way around. I’ve to appreciate her for that. But Kalyani’s death in the water, felt so gimmicky. Just because it was titled this way, she goes into the water, it didn’t feel appropriate.

Of all the characters, if there was one stand out performance, it had to be Gulabi (Raghuvir Yadav), a hijira who acts as a pimp for Madhumathi. A combo which will surely bring chills to the viewers. Especially the scene where he takes Chuyia to a palace and walks on the way to room.

To see the people walk about their acts so nonchalantly as if it’s very common, makes us know how hardened they’re as individuals. A set of people who don’t even know what mistakes they are committing. It’s disheartening to see that such people had existed before. I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to make them understand the ideologies of what’s good and bad. Truly another shocker of a film.

Movie Review – Remember the Titans

A Fool Proof Sports Drama

Sports drama are always fool proof, isn’t it. All you got to do is stick to the template, put some decent actors and bam! You’ve got a winner on cards. There are very few sports films which goes out of the template, which are usually make or break. But when considering other genres, sports films are the only ones which people wouldn’t get bored because everyone like to see the underdog winning, everyone likes the passion on field and embraces the unity off it. ‘Remember the Titans’ too is one such film which does its job properly.

Seeing the title I thought it was a parody of movie like ‘300’ but thankfully not. Knowing that it had Denzel Washington, I was rest assured that whether the film gives me profound experience or not, it’d at least be a movie that I’d not regret watching. That’s exactly how it was. It kept me glued to the film for a sport which I didn’t know and the topic which was clichéd and beaten to death so many times. Yet the ever inspiring storyline and great actors keep us hooked to the screen. That’s the power of cinema.

The movie starts with Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) being appointed as an assistant coach to Bill Yoast (Will Patton) for the newly integrated T. C. Williams High School’s Football team (or in common terms, Rugby Team) in Alexandria, Virginia. Boone then has to take head coach position and the role gets reversed. Beautiful thing here was, how Boone’s character doesn’t change whether he was an assistant or the head coach. The rising was not shown dramatically or heroically yet Boone commands respect once he takes the position.

It’s a regular expected stuff from then on with whites and blacks not mingling and not playing the sport together. In the camp they are forced to obey and later become friends. Unfortunately as I had no knowledge about sports I couldn’t follow what was happening on screen but to be honest it was not necessary to know the sport completely. It’s not ‘Moneyball’. All you got to know is the emotion, which works, thanks to some great performances and music. The latter of course was a regular template music but mostly works. Because it’s a film like this.

The bonding between the boys were lovely to watch. Just like how it was in ‘Chak De India’. Of course it’s not an Indian film, didn’t have a sport we understand and of course didn’t have Shah Rukh Khan, yet the emotion was the same. It works and would give anyone a grin who’s watching. Gerry Bertier’s (Ryan Hurst) action felt a little bit over the top and felt like it was glamourized but the boys were too sweet to be criticized. Also it was nice to see a young Ryan Gosling in the background. As there were too many boys and not everyone had proper screen time or a background story, it was not easy to follow what’s happening to whom but the overall picture was clear and satisfactory.

For some reason, this film reminded me of ‘American Pie’ and ‘Harry Potter’. ‘Harry Potter’ may be because of their camp to Gettysburg College but ‘American pie’ mainly because of Gerry Bertier and his girlfriend Emma Hoyt (Kate Bosworth). They felt like a ditto to Oz (Chris Klein) and Heather (Mena Suvari). Because Oz and Gerry had a similar frame and Emma Heather had the same blonde charm. I’m sure both the films had not done this on purpose as a tribute because both released around the same year but it was just a lovely coincidence. Only made me wonder who if both the world had got intermixed. What a riot it would have been.

Movie Review – Earth

A movie which you can’t “part” ways with easily

Don’t go by the posters, with the face of Aamir Khan occupying three fourth of the frame, it looks like any normal revenge saga of a leading hero. But thankfully as I saw it as a part of Elements trilogy and knew that it was going to be a heavy movie, I wasn’t perturbed by the poster. The film which though starts on a dull note when compared to the first movie, ‘Fire’, quickly picks up and keeps you tense throughout. The movie matches its predecessor, if not, only gets better.

The film, more than anything, was brave. That’s the advantage of being a movie which was not being Bollywood, yet has the Bollywood sensibilities and mixes it well with Hollywood Persona. Thankfully so, because it was not made by an Indian resident. How ‘Fire’ not being in Hindi wasn’t affecting, ‘Earth’ not being in English too was not affecting. This shows how language is never a barrier no matter about what region you’re making the film. Or maybe the language was optimally used so that the difference didn’t matter at all.

The film takes some time to come to grips. Of course it has an effervescent Nandita Das, an actor whom you couldn’t take your eyes off, who keeps you glued to the screen, regardless of what’s happening on screen. Plus now she was in her home ground, going back to a poor rooted character whom one would instantly sympathize. I missed the charming Nandita Das of ‘Fire’ but doing what she does best, here too she was terrific.

The film is mostly seen through the eyes of Lenny Sethna aka Lenny baby (Maia Sethna) who is a young polio affected kid from a wealthy Parsi family. Her world revolves around her ayah, Shanta (Nandita Das), whose world revolves around Dil Navaz, the Ice-Candy Man (Aamir Khan), and Hassan, the Masseur (Rahul Khanna). Shanta being a naturally flirty attractive woman was naturally a cynosure of all eyes. Initially, may be because we knew Aamir as a big star, or may be due to narrative, it looked like Dil Navaz was actually the one loving Shanta and Hassan was actually lusting on her. The scene where her Pallu falls off, gave that notion but later we get to know that Shanta and Hassan were actually in love.

Religion and politics were talked upon much easily by the friends and for a major part looked like Dil Navaz being a hero. The situation becomes tense post the train scene where Navaz sees a train full of dead bodies. We get to see a lot of violence post that and most of it were quite affecting and effective. But the curious part was, Lenny baby being a rich kid, how was she allowed to go out just so easily with her Ayah when the world around them were tearing apart. That was the only part which felt farfetched.

There was one great scene where Lenny baby on her birthday goes to the terrace of her house and sees a next door kid whose mother was raped by a mob. The exchange of conversation between the Parsi kids and the poor kid looks so in genuine. The kid asks whether they’d like to play with marbles and Lenny asks whether he’d have cake. Sometime before Lenny asks her friend what does ‘rape’ mean, the kid asks Lenny and his friend, what does ‘cake’ mean? In a film which was so violent, this was the most hard hitting scene.

Deepa Mehta has got to be one of the best filmmakers to make sex scenes. It was so good in ‘Fire’ and now in ‘Earth’. May be Nandita Das and Deepa Mehta share a great chemistry which reflects on screen. But here the interesting part of the movie was not the sex scene but the conversation after that. Hassan proposes to Shanta for marriage, which she was initially hesitant but once he says that he’d go to Amritsar and convert to Hinduism, she accepts it. That was a curious scene as to what made her accept him. Whether the decision to move to India or to change his faith. Whatever it was, he looked more honest than her.

The film has an impactful climax which would stay in your head for a while. Wish it could have ended right there instead of a needless flash forward with a voice over. May be it’s just the directors style.

Movie Review – Caesar Must Die

Of course he must

I’ve watched abstract films and I’ve watched pointless films. Abstract films are absolutely fine, even if I don’t understand anything after spending hours on it. Abstract films being pointless are understandable. In fact it’s a mix of both. It’s okay when it’s more abstract and less pointless but it only bothers me when the opposite happens. ‘Caesar must Die’ was one of it. Seriously, what’s the point?

Generally I don’t read up about the movie before I watch. Regulars of my blog would already be knowing it by now. This too was one such movie. Mostly that’s the fruitful habit. For this movie, curiously I got a sneak peak. I understood from some keywords that it was a movie about a prison. I was excited thinking that it would be a foreign jail break movie. It had a run time of just about an hour so I was elated for that too, thinking that my Saturday night would be made but it ended up be one of the longest one hours I had in my life.

The film starts with the Shakespearean play about Julius Caesar and then goes into flashback mode. We see few prisoners being recruited for the stage play. The recruitment process was elaborate. Of course it has to, it’s an art movie after all. Once the actors were selected, we get to know the crime they’ve done and they start rehearsing. Up to that point I was hopeful. There was a lot of angle the film could have taken. They could have drawn parallels to Shakespearean characters with the real life story of prisoners, something like what Vishal Bhardwaj does. They could have brought in the conflict of the prisoners. They could have brought in some tension between the prisoners or between prisoners and police or the organizers. Or hell, they could have at least used it as a plot for jail break as I thought, but nothing happens. They just keep rehearsing for the next one hour. It’s as mundane as jail life could be. May be that’s the point. They wanted to show how mundane and unexciting jail life can be. Seriously, why struggle so much to do so. CCTV footage of the jail would have given that.

The film takes place in two phases a black and white phase and a color phase. Obviously to show different time lines. I thought at least at the juncture where they two would be mingled there would be something interesting but that too ended up to be normal. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it now too, “normalcy is overrated”

There was only one specific scene and the dialogue that I liked in the movie. During the course of practice, the director of the play shouts or instructs the prisoner saying something about not wasting the time. He replies saying that he has been in prison for such a long time and would never consider time to be of paramount importance. May be that’s him. For us, mere mortals, it’s time which is of paramount importance more than anything else and I found the movie to be absolute waste of time.