Cha-e Chuti

 

There is a  whiff of a breeze in Bengali Cinema. Apart from the aping of Masala Bollywood Films, occasionally a bubble floats up which is obviously commercial but different. The reason is because of a debutant director Aniket who has made Cha-E Chuti based on a true story…

A serial making unit gets a forced break when a technician accidentally dies on their sets. Silajit-Sonali-Kunal-Anjana-Dona-Rudranil-Locket-Kharaj-Rajesh and director Milan (all playing under their real names!!), forget the tragedy and under guidance of Sabyasachi(Benuda) make their way to Mehulpur –on-Sea in Orissa. Making the trip with them is Debshankar. Relationships are on the air and actors must obviously indulge in alcohol as that is their projected customary obsession.

Locket and Silajit are divorced from each other because Locket is a lesbian. Silajit is developing a relationship with Sonali and is on the verge of marrying her. Locket eyes new actress Dona who is sleeping with Rudranil in the hope of getting a film role. Anjana is disgusted with her drunken artist husband Debshankar and is on the verge of leaving him and moving in with Kunal. Kharaj is bent on enjoying his freedom from his domineering wife while Rajesh has come to gamble and drink.

As these relationships are developing, Kunal slaps the hotel caretaker and he falls down and dies. The actors decide to wipe out all evidence and dump the body onto the beach. The Police then step in and Silajit’s mobile is found near the body. The relationships crack under the tension. Dona turns away from Rudranil and into Locket’s arms. The famous and much publicised Locket-Dona liplock takes place.

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Anjana decides to avoid Kunal who could possibly land in jail as it was he who had delivered the blow. She turns to her husband, specially on hearing that he is going to Germany on a scholarship. She says that she had disliked coming here with these actors, and that she would give up films. Kunal feels he has lost Anjana. Silajit wants to tell the truth to the police but is stopped by the rest. Sonali thinks that such an act would land her in jail because she was the one who had wiped the floor clean of blood. Silajit finds that Sonali wants to avoid him. Kharaj and Rudranil are depressed at the prospect of the police and legal hassles. The Police O.C. interrogates them mercilessly.

They call Benuda desperately. Debshankar learns that it was Anjana’s idea  to come on the trip. Sabyasachi comes in and finally reveals all. The caretaker, Police O.C., Rajesh are all in the plot to play a joke on them.   There has actually been no murder. The caretaker is alive. Relationships  reverse once again. They depart as they had come—singing merrily. Sabyasachi proclaims that he has driven 29 years without an accident. Suddenly a body drops on them shattering the windscreen of their car. Is this now real or a joke???

The film suffered hugely when Kunal Mitra unfortunately died midway. However he had kept all his clothes used in the shooting, in a separate suitcase. Aniket managed to get a non film guy to fill in as a double. He had to resort to computer graphics to put the finishing touches. Srikanta Acharya was roped in to do the voice over. The compromises made to finish the film in Kunal’s absence are obvious.

Leaving this aside—the film’s main strength  were its actors who performed well. Kharaj was outstanding and was ably accompanied by Rudranil. Aniket showed glimpses of his potential by using varied  angles, specially the crane shots. His direction was crisp and focussed. The film showed signs of drifting occasionally—specially the Rabindrasangeet sequences. When will Bengali films do away with irrelevant songs which mar the pace of the film? The shots of the sea were very artificial, and there were too many dining hall sequences to show Kharaj’s gluttony. The film was almost  two and a half hour long and could easily have been trimmed down by a good half hour.

The songs were in tune with the current practices of modifying old Bengali film hits. None of them were impressive. What was noticeable was some very competent editing. Badal Sirkar’s work as DOP was commendable as he got some good frames and angles. The colours were well blended.  Aniket also realised that some sequences were tedious and out of tune with the pace of the film. He intelligently , with his DOP used innovative angles and crane speed to overcome that.

Watching it at Nandan was  right, with the ticket prices at Rs.70.

 

Still at the very best , the film is a well made soft drink, which after the initial fizz, leaves little behind. It is difficult to recommend it wholeheartedly, but probably it is worth the effort to support these new directors who are trying to rejuvenate content based Bengali films.

Dreaming

It is difficult to dream nowadays. Either you are tired—so it is easy to sleep or you are too busy with no time for yourself—specially if your professional practice is linked to your mobile. Dreaming requires time and space and it is difficult to get that specially if you are a husband, father, uncle, brother,honorary president or vice president etc. Dreaming requires a mood, and an ambience(how hackneyed has this word become!!). More important, it requires a blend, a cocktail of sudden silences and a wandering mind.

That suddenly happened this evening. Ranjana. and I had suddenly decided to go for a walk downstairs. Pluto cavorted in circles. The lawn was curiously empty. The traffic sounds wafted in from afar. A distance away, sounds of an exciting badminton game could just be heard. A lonely jet blinked its way across the dark Kolkata sky. Pluto had become strangely reticent and sat quietly on a chair. The green grass of the lawn was split by swathes of light from the street lamps. My mind began to wander in jagged lines across the day’s events.

I was the 8 year old boy walking along Puri beach. The warm moist sand was clinging to my toes. The foam of a receding wave percolated through my toe clefts. The evening sea breeze ruffled through my hair.My cousin stood looking at the restless sea surface. My sedate sister looked up at the sky catching the last rays of a sinking sun. My Father and Mother had paused for a moment to look back at us. My Mashi and Meshomasai stood silhouetted with a returning fisherman. Here in the heart of Kolkata , this scene from four decades back, etched in a strange receptacle of my memory box suddenly floated up.

Both my parents have passed on as have Mashi and Meshomoshai. My cousin has changed irrevocably and my sister is here but not here. But the salt spray tasted the same now as ever before.

The mobile phone rang. Pluto barked. A particularly loud horn blast from an irate lorry driver shattered the silence. NOW had returned with a vengeance. But at least, even if for a short while , I felt the power of a returning memory caught irrevocably in the cobwebs of time.

This link below will give the appropriate song by Kumar Shanu for the occasion.

http://www.box.net/shared/odoj1b6qdx

DEATH—How Easy To Forget…..

Today, I attended a Sradh ceremony of a person who lived down the road. I had known him for years as a person who ran a business. We had nodded at each other, talked of nothing in particular on the few social gatherings we had attended together, and had invited each other on the ceremonies at our respective houses. I had seen him grow up, marry, have children ,reach middle age and then grow old.

When I reached, the ceremonies were over and a few family members were finishing lunch. His photo was displayed with lots of flower garlands all around. The incense sticks had died out. The photograph was of his younger days where he looked much younger than what I remembered. His son, head shaven, energetically tried to drag me for lunch.

I place the white rajanigandhas  on the platform and fold my hands before his picture—an action that I had not done at any time when he was alive. A few feet away, groups of people talked about the latest news—Telengana, Gorkhaland, cricket and the deceased in that order.

His wife , wiped a tear away, but was soon chatting away about his last moments. I mouthed a few  responses. She then called upon her acquaintances to talk about their back pain. She was proud of her son and his achievements, displaying a memento given by  an association for a work well done. She then brought out an XRay to take an opinion on. She wanted to fix an appointment.

Inside ,children ran here and there. A DVD of a Hindi film played on. The ladies of the house were sipping tea and chatting away. The incense sticks burned on.

Suddenly, I felt claustrophobic. The narrow corridor started closing in on me. The windows started constricting and I suddenly could only see people talking, though I could not hear them. The sky had disappeared. Only a cold wind blew in through the open doors.

The chair in which the deceased had sat on a couple of weeks ago, the dining table which he had selected and had bought lovingly himself years ago, the stairs which he had gone up and down a countless times---all stared back at me. The deceased had gone--remembered now in snippets of conversation, photographs and his old clothes, watch and rings.

This fate awaits all of us—maybe tomorrow. I walk towards my car. The driver opens the door. I sink into the seat, and look at the roads teeming with the evening crowd. As I sit here penning these lines, I try very hard to remember the deceased’s face. But all I can bring back is a faded outline, blurred and washed out. The process of forgetting has started.

The Will To Death....

On my computer, I clicked on the play button above. This haunting song played on and on……

Paa—the movie review

Sometimes you can feel a defining moment in film history. Probably, Satyajit Ray’s initial audience did. It is far more difficult to identify such a moment in commercial films. Probably Paa is.

With a standard story line, clever scripting techniques, the progeria struck protagonist  Auro (Amitabh Bacchan)with very little time to live, the uniqueness of a son in real life (Abhisekh Bacchan), playing the father’s role while the real life father playing the son, and a pathbreaking make up by by Christien Tinsley (The Passion of The Christ) and Dominie Till (King Kong) , this film captivates the audience.

The director, adman R.Balakrishnan (Balki to everybody), is the National Creative Director at Lowe, who had the guts to fight for more payment to 80 deprived colleagues when IMG took over. When he was asked in an interview in 2004 as to how he preferred being known as, he replied “Simple”. That is the greatest quality of the film. Apart from a forgettable media bashing(literally) section, he keeps to telling a story of a father-son relationship, a man and woman story, a child and his family of Mum and Bum(grandmother—so called because she has a big one!!!), and a child and his school friends’ story.

Amol(Abhisekh) and Vidya(Vidya Balan) romance in Cambridge amongst the Cloisters and green fields and the library.

Amol does not wear a condom, a fact which he acknowledges to the world over a televised press conference later. The result is a pregnancy which Amol wants terminated. Amol wants to pursue his political ambitions under his rich father Mr.Atre’s(Paresh Rawal) guidance. Vidya in an overdrawn scene, is asked repeatedly by her mother Bum(Arundhuti Nag)—“Baccha chaahoge yah nahi?” She says yes and the result is Auro (NOT Aurobindo but Auro). She discovers Auro has progeria, a rare genetic disorder, in which the body ages quickly so much so that a 12 year old child may have a constitution of a 70 year old person. Naturally such patients die between the ages of 12—14. Auro is 12 and is on medicines and any abnormal stress may result in a catastrophe. But he remains like a normal schoolboy, requesting his mom not to drop him to school, refusing to eat Khichdi, and talking to the air sometimes.

Auro is told by his mother that he does not have a father, because his father did not want him. Auro’s work of a white globe is picked up by MP Amol, as a work denoting vision of a one world with no boundaries and the prize giving ceremony is transmitted on television , giving Vidya an opportunity to know about Amol’s current status.

The hounding media scare Auro, and he fires an email to Amol saying that he hates him for the media attention. Amol corrects that by an injunction from the High Court.The two chat on the Net and Amol offers to take Auro to see Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi. However he forgets the date in the midst of a political battle. Auro, having told everyone , that he is going finds himself devastated when no one comes to pick him up. Amol however apologises and makes a fresh date. Meanwhile Vidya tells Auro that Amol is his father. Auro learns about the word “Bastard” at school and realises that he is one because his parents did not go “Round and Round”. He is warned by Vidya that he is not to be a “Hichki” to Amol.

Amol and Auro go to Delhi and build up a relationship, where Auro teaches Amol his famous dance involving fingering of the bum in a curiously empty Delhi Metro compartment. Auro displays his simple theory about bodyguards saying that a Potty Bomb can kill Amol because his bodyguards cannot prevent that.

On the flight back, he says that Amol has made a mistake.His last mistake was forgetting his promise to Auro. His pichli ka pichli mistake was letting the media scare Auro, and as he was trying to say “Pichli ka Pichli ka Pichli” mistake, he remembers that he should not be a Hichki.

They return home where Auro suffers a stroke after inadvertently entering the cricket field. His days are numbered. Amol learns from Bum that Auro is in hospital. He rushes to the hospital and in a memorable silent scene learns that Vidya is Auro’s mother and he is the father. Amol wants Vidya to forgive him, but he refuses. Auro tries to bring them together, but Vidya is adamant. Auro then shouts himself to another stroke. Practically on his deathbed, he receives the apology from a girl who had run away scared from him and to whom he never gave the opportunity to patch up. The girl says”Galti karnewalo ki to mauka chahiye…”. Auro forces his parents to hold hands and do the “Round and round”. He tells Amol that his “Pichli ka pichli ka pichli mistake was Auro”.

With his dying breath, he calls Vidya as Ma and Amol as Paa.

 

The highlight is of course the fact that Auro beat Amitabh Bacchan. In a role which will sweep every Award ceremony, Amitabh replaces his rich baritone for a nasal squiggly voice which is still very ,very audible.. His posture ,walking, movements, smiles, pouts,eye movement, are all anti- Amitabh and an unique achievement.

Amitabh modestly says that the makeup did it all. Christien and Dominie took a latex mould and fitted it over the face(Beard and all!!). they took 4-5 hours each day to paint the veins and lines on the actor’s face.The result was that even on a full screen facial shot, one could not spot any flaw. No wonder they took 6 crores of the 14.75 crore total budget. They provided a platform—Amitabh the actor then took over, to create this magnificent, unforgettable role. The Tarzan like chest thumps, the sudden sniggers, the deadpan delivery and the millisecond advancement of dialogue timing was brilliant.

Abhisekh was cool and suave, perhaps overdoing in certain areas. But he was photographed well and remained vibrant throughout. In the latter half, he showed his prowess with expressive eyes and movements. He remained a solid foil to a strong, determined Vidya Balan, who conveyed the nuances of a powerful, but caring and sentimental mother. Her role is in tune with her saris(Designed by Sabyasachi), sombre and striking. effortlessly straddling the back and foreground whenever needed.

Arundhuti Nag demonstrated her theatre training of 25 years, in little touches, her demeanour and the essential love for her family percolating through every facial expression.

For her, the role was perhaps routine, but the determination with which she built the 3 storied Ranga Mancha in Bangalore as a counterfoil to Prithvi Theatres from scratch, was very much evident as a strong woman who is unfazed by her daughter’s single mother status. Paresh Rawal was adequate, and handled the faux pas in the “Visiting Hours are over” sequence. The child actors were well handled by Balki, with Vishnu (Pratik Katare) outstanding in a sequence where he compares himself with his father-“Woh humko murder karne chahte hain aur main suicide karna chahta hoon."

Balki considers Ilyaraja as the God of music.”Even if we all live for another 5000 years to compose music, we won't get as melodious as him," he said. Unfortunately ,though the background score was good, the songs left a lot to be desired.None of the songs are outstanding, and are unlikely to be popular as Taare Zameen Par.

 

The cinematographer, P.C.Srinivas did a good job in capturing the Cambridge greenery, but had a tough time in the indoor sequences at Auro’s home. He used innovative camera angles to reduce Amitabh’s height and the discrepancies with his co-actors. But this necessity forced him to compromise in  indoor shots in Auro’s home.

Editor Anil Naidu was competent but several of his cuttings in the initial song sequence was irritating to the eye.

Francis Ford Coppolas “Jack” had a similar theme played by Robin Williams. But it was perhaps Coppola”s most forgettable film.

Director and screen writer Balki surpassed himself.He had the advantage of a physically handicapped child as an excuse for using words potty, shit etc, and jokes related to it. Mercifully, he did not degenerate into too many PJs.His handling of the modern schoolboy mentality, frustrations, humour and friendly dialogues was spot on. His greatest success was never to let the whole story lapse into melodrama.

His  mistakes included  the attack on the media personalities, which was perhaps the Bacchan’s reply to nosy media speculations and unethics!!!

Another area was when Auro was going to Delhi with Amol. Can a mother of a dying boy allow her son to go unaccompanied by a member of the family and without meeting the person who was taking him and without explaining about all the tablets the son was taking? How could she allow him to get into a strange car to take him to the airport? How can Amol with all his father’s clout  be unable to find Vidya who is a practising Gynaecologist, if he was so much in love with her? How can Amol send off such a boy from the airport to his home without coming to his house to at least talk with an adult of that family? All of these could have been crucial in another film, but the sheer weight of Amitabh’s role relegates everything to the back ground.

 

'Paa', is an AB Corp Ltd presentation in association with Reliance BIG Pictures, and is being released in 700 screens worldwide, including print and digital formats. The countries include UK, US, Canada, UAE, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.

So just sit back and enjoy the movie without nitpicking.You are seeing a landmark in Indian Cinema. If a Slumdog could win at the Oscars,then Paa is in the hunt for the Best Actor.

AB Corp, you have to hype it well.  You have made the right start in inviting Amir and even waiting for him to start the premiere show. You need all of his inputs for the Oscar lobbying….

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HitList—the Movie

Sandip Ray’s position is unenviable. Every day and in every film he makes, there is the invisible shadow of his father’s name hanging over his head. He cannot deviate from his father’s style and taste, nor does he have the quality of thought, actors, music directors or cinematographers that his father had. His script is devoid of all the nuances and subtleties of his father and his story telling abilities are just about average. Nowhere has this been more obvious than his current release—HitList.

(Tota ,Sudipta, Koel )

 The story is simplistically simple. Inspired by what he had read years earlier,  Sandip Ray’s  script is loosely based on Dark Days of the American Dream , Sin City or Black Dahlia and features the avenging widow who systematically kills off her husband’s killers. Tota Roychoudhury, Sudipta(his screen wife), Saheb and Babul Supriyo of MIdLife Advertising agency sell off their concept to a rival firm. Subhranil Dutta (Rono) is the honest Creative Director who is killed in a frenzy of rage at Tota’s house. Koel(Anindita Chatterjee) is Rono’s wife, who gets employment at the same firm and then starts her revenge spree.

(Saheb, Babul, Sandip Roy)

Saswata is the police officer in a forgettable role, who brings in his guru Dhritiman Chatterjee(Prabhat) to solve the case. Dhritiman hounds the suspects, till Tota and his wife drive off the road at KualaLumpur( don’t know why they had to go there). Dhritiman knows Koel’s  killing off the other two but releases her as he feels that he would have done the same thing.

(Koel)

The film is horribly out of tune with modern films. Apart from the Feluda like opening style of Babul Supriyo’s murder, and the taut progress of the first fifteen minutes, the film meanders along without any serious attempt at character delineation or psychological delvings into what causes normal people to behave abnormally and talk about killing people as casually as swatting a fly. The opportunities were there. The reactions of the four killers, and how they changed after the  murder was one area. Koel’s reactions after her husband’s death and her transformation into a cold blooded killer was never explained. These are the areas where there is real directorial or script work. Unfortunately there was none. Why were Dipankar Dey(Koel’s screen father) and his wife brought in? There was no real interaction between them. Tinnu Anand got a paid Kuala Lumpur trip for a side role of no substance or worth. He was sent once to Satyajit Ray by his father Inder Raj Anand to see film making. I am sure he can see the contrast.

(Sandip and Tinu)

Dhritiman Chatterjee wearing a jacket and  scarf and dark glasses , stands out like a snow mountain in the desert and certainly NOT like an undercover detective. Did Sandip Ray think of the Kiriti Roy/ Swapankumar stories of a bygone era?

(Dhritiman)

If so, he is hopelessly out of sync with the 21st century. What was the purpose in showing the Malaysian dance performance? Payback time to Malaysia tourism??  What use was the ad film shots of the Malaysian model? Some ogling interest?

 

(Kim)

Prasenjit turned down the role played by Tota. It speaks volumes of his intelligence. The role is not fleshed out, nor  does it have any acting peaks. Tota does his best, consummate actor that he is. But even he will be dissatisfied by the final effect—the instant erasure when the film ends from the memory of the viewer. Sudipta is now looking her age and is overacting in parts.

(Tota and Sudipta)

Babul Supriyo ‘s role is inconsequential. Subhranil looked dignified and serious. The real surprise was Saheb. Energetic, restless, flirtatious, exuberant—he conveyed his character brilliantly. His death midway in the film resulted in the loss of whatever energy the film had.

(Saheb and Koel)

(Saheb and Babul)

There were two previous Topshe’s in the film—Siddhartha and Saswata. But again they must have been also confused as to what they were doing there.

Koel deviates from her song and dance heroine roles and shows that she has the potential for good acting. However ,there were areas in which she is very ordinary. Her reaction on seeing her husband’s dead body is typically Hindi film of the 70s copy. One can literally see her winding up for the wail. Again , if the director had so wanted, there was enough scope for her to emote with force and character. She could never convey the changes which transforms her from an ordinary house wife to a cold blooded scheming killer.

(Koel and Tinu)

And how can anyone be so foolish as to keep her Hit List on her mobile!!!! Dhritiman Chatterjee is lost in this role of the retired police officer who relies on his hunches. Any decent forensic expert or Police Officer could tell that the injury on Rono’s head was made antemortem and by a sharp heavy object.

The cinematography(Sasanka) was competent with a few great shots like Koel standing against the Kuala Lumpur skyline and the Koel-Dhritiman conversation on the office balcony.

(Koel)

The Editor Subroto Roy did his best. Though there were a couple of false cuts, whatever pace the film had was due to him. The music is eminently forgettable and so unfortunately is the film. Thank God, I saw it at Nandan (half empty on the first Saturday evening show) for Rs. 70. The INOX crowd must be regretting their expense.

(Shooting Scene)

Sandip Ray could very well benefit from watching the classic of them all with the same theme—The Bride Wore Black  by Francois Truffaut.

(Original Poster Of Bride Wore Black)

Is it too much to expect a film a little like that from a man who has the genes of one of the best film directors of all times and who had the unique opportunity to work with him in his formative years?

Sandip Ray