Beautiful

2011

Directed by: VK Prakash

Music: Ratheesh Vega

Starring: Jayasurya, Anoop Menon, Meghna Raj, 

Tiny Tom, Thesni Khan, Unni Menon, Nandu 

Malayalam cinema has been seeing a resurgence these past few years, with young directors/script writers pushing the envelope as far as plot ideas are concerned. Bio pics rub shoulders with period films, suspense thrillers walk abreast with slice-of-life films, relationships are viewed differently and while traditional structures are still in place, modern values are not looked down upon. The language of cinema is changing, and even though mindless entertainment is there for the asking, a lot more choices are suddenly available to the cinéaste who demands more from his movie-viewing experience. It helps that the young Turks coming in are not afraid to take chances, or roles that are not very 'heroic' on the face of it. [All this seems true for the leading men; for some reason, scripts with a strong feminist presence are still lacking, even though we have actresses who are not only competent enough, but are as willing to take on different (and often, controversial) roles as their male counterparts.]

I must say that I had had this DVD for some time, and only got around to watching it a couple of months ago. For some reason, the synopsis did not attract me; it seemed, as they would say here, the same old, same old - a tired script about a joyous quadriplegic and a morose, encumbered-by-the-cares-of-the-world 'friend' whose life changes because of his association with the man who has lost so much more. So it was with trepidation that I slipped this in on a depressing Sunday afternoon. [I was sure I was going to end up even more depressed after the film.]

Mem Sahib

1956

Directed by: RC Talwar

Music: Madan Mohan

Starring: Meena Kumari, Shammi Kapoor, Kishore Kumar, 

Pratima Devi, Gyani

I suddenly felt like I'd been ignoring Shammi Kapoor for a while. So, why not review a film that I have been meaning to for ages? One where he co-stars with Meena Kumari (one of my favourite actresses) and that showcases him in a very different role? He is still charming as always, but this film, made in the days before he became the Junglee, is probably one of his most restrained performances. What is more, he is not the hero, he does not get to walk away with the heroine, and he plays a negative character. Phew!

Tea With Mussolini

1999

Directed by: Franco Zeffirelli

Starring: Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Cher, 

Charlie Lucas, Baird Wallace, Michael Williams, Paolo Seganti, 

Lily Tomlin, Tessa Pritchard, Mino Bellei, Massimo Ghini

It takes a certain amount of directorial vision to take a chapter out of one's own life set in the period before World War II, add dollops of humour and come up with a thoroughly engaging film. 

As war films go, this is not a gritty look at the horrors of war. It is, however, a look at how people get so caught up in the business of living that before they know it, world events are right at their doorsteps; how, despite the mayhem around, one strives to live as ordinary a life as possible, and how misery makes for strange bed-fellows. 

Monsieur Lazhar

2011

Directed by: Philippe Falardeau

Music: Martin Léon

Starring: Mohamed Felag, Sophie Nelisse, Émilien Néron, 

Danielle Proulx, Brigitte Poupart, Jules Philip

Once in a while, you come across a film by accident. You have never heard of it before, but you pick it up because it seems interesting. This was one such. My husband picked it up from our local library, and I must say that I'm a bit ashamed that I hadn't heard of a film that was one of the final five nominees for the Oscars in the Best Foreign Film category that year. Unfortunately, it ran up against A Separation. In any other year, I think, this would definitely have been an Academy Award winner. 

My Favourites: Philosophical Songs

This was meant as a sister-post to the earlier one, but once I began to delve into the theme, I realised that 'philosophical' songs ran an entire gamut - after all, they could espouse any philosophy at all. So, in a bid to make things easier for myself, I decided to set some parameters for myself. I decided that background songs do not count, so that removed  Kiske liye ruka hai  from Ek Saal. Or songs that were sung by some arbitrary person on screen, so that meant that I could not use Ye duniya ek saagar hai from Bandish or Sab din hot na ek samaan (Senapati) by one of my favourite music directors, Madan Mohan. I also decided to limit myself to songs that sing of a personal philosophy, of a way the protagonist lives his life, or, at the most, exhorts a friend/spouse/lover to live their life a certain way. Boom! That took care of many of the songs on my list, and I was left woebegone to start from scratch.

My Favourites: Songs of Cynicism

I've never been a hopeless romantic, though I often looked at lovestories with a feeling that bordered on the wistful. Are there really the roses-and-candlelight kind of lovestories? Or the rainbows-and-unicorns-and-pixie-dust kind? Perhaps there are, and perhaps there the other kind that is no less real for not having any of those. I do know that I enjoy romances though I'm not too sure that I like the overly sweet ones. I also know that experiences have made me much more cynical today than I was before. Perhaps the truth, as always, lies somewhere in between. (Hmm, does that make me a cynical romantic, or a romantic cynic?) 

Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai

1961
Directed by: Nasir Hussain
Music: Shankar-Jaikishen
Lyrics: Hasrat Jaipuri, Shailendra
Starring: Dev Anand, Asha Parekh, Pran, Sulochana, 
Rajendranath, Mubarak, Raj Mehra

*Warning: Lots of comments on the side, and a long preamble to the review.*

This was not supposed to be my next post. I had a list of songs all written out and scheduled to publish, when one of my long-time readers and occasional-email-and-telephone-friend, Lalitha, called to say she was visiting a friend close to where I live, so, could we meet? But, of course. We shared a love for old Hindi movies and music in general, and Dev Anand in particular. So plans were finalised and we had a long discussion on which film to watch while they were here.

Umrao Jaan

1981

Directed by: Muzaffar Ali

Music: Khayyam

Lyrics: Shahryar

Starring: Rekha. Farouque Shaikh, Naseeruddin Shah, Raj Babbar, 

Bharat Bhushan, Shaukat Azmi, Dina Pathak, Prema Narayan

My last post came about because the film had been remade and had initiated a virtual debate about its cinematic quality, and the advisability of remaking films that ought not to be touched. I fell squarely into the anti-remake group; one assumes that the people who see, and like the remake, most probably have not seen the original, and even more possibly, cannot relate to a much simpler time. In any case, the discussion that led to that review also led me to thinking about remakes in general, and reminded me of another classic that was remade (and butchered) - as different from Chashme Buddoor as chalk from cheese. Umrao Jaan Ada, the legendary courtesan of Lucknow. Of course, director JP Dutta screamed himself hoarse that he was not 'remaking' Muzaffar Ali's film, but was adapting the novel on which it was based. Apart from the fact that the original film is deservedly seen as a classic, it is a period film, a genre that I love. It is also a very well-made period film with its meticulous attention to detail.

Chashme Buddoor

1981

Directed by Sai Paranjpye

Music: Raj Kamal

Starring: Farouque Shaikh, Deepti Naval, Ravi Baswani, 

Rakesh Bedi, Saeed Jaffrey, Leela Misra, Vinod Nagpal

A long time ago, Nalini, one of the readers of my blog asked me why I had never reviewed a Farooque Shaikh-Deepti Naval film yet. It got me thinking; it was not as if I had not reviewed films from the 80s before. Yet, I had never touched one of the most effective star-pairings of middle cinema. Like Amol Palekar-Zarina Wahab, one knew what one was going to see when one went to watch a Farooque Shaikh-Deepti Naval film. It would be more 'real'; the plot would be simple, there would be no violence, there wouldn't be the overt trappings of 'masala' films, and the end result would be rather sweet - not the diabetic-inducing sugary sweet confection that later Barjatya movies would turn out to be, but the bitter-sweet reasonable endings that are what an ordinary man and woman would have. 

My Favourites: Stage Performances

I'm suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I seem to have wandered off far away from Hindi films and film songs, even though I spent half my nights listening to a playlist of songs over and over and over again, almost obsessively. In that playlist are songs that range from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the melodious to the musically-challenged - they all appeal to me in different ways for different reasons.