Update: Please visit GOAT's new Filmi Geek blog - www.filmigeek.net
This is the fourth installment of Geek's Indian movie list. This is the latest chapter of the comprehensive catalogue of all the Indian films I have seen since I began watching them in earnest, with Fire, about 16 months ago. (Check out Part I, Part II, and Part III for some history.)
This installment brings me almost up to date; there are only two films that I have seen that I haven't yet written up. With this installment, there are 43 films in the catalog. So that's where all the time goes ...
Anyway, on to the films, below the jump.
Sholay - there is a full review of this excellent classic film here.
Water - The third and final film in Deepa Mehta's "Elements" series that began with my beloved Fire and continued with the breathtaking Earth. I mentioned my eager anticipation of this film, and a bit of its rocky history, here. The film turned out to be the weakest of the trilogy, but it is still lovely and moving. Set in the holy city of Banaras in the 1930s, it portrays the experiences of a child bride who, widowed before she is even old enough to know she is married, is exiled to an ashram ruled by a tyrannical old hypocrite who sells the prettier young widows into prostitution. The film’s real message is wrought in the juncture between that secluded cloister and a greater city in which the progressive ideas of Gandhi are beginning to take hold. The greatest strength of this film is Deepa Mehta’s visuals, which call on the titular element of water as a rich metaphor for so many things: a force for change and destruction and cleansing, but also, when stagnant, a haven for the breeding of disease.
Hum tumhare hain sanam – At times this film is merely an overwrought, love-triangular, Bollywood melodrama. But Hum tumhare hain sanam shines when it digs deep into the damage that failure to communicate can wreak on a relationship. The relationship at risk here is that between straight-laced businessman Gopal (overacting superstar Shah Rukh Khan) and his sweet but clueless wife Radha (the gorgeous Madhuri Dixit, in a role that doesn’t come close to taking advantage of her abilities). All Gopal wants is some romantic, intimate time with his wife – lots of it, in fact – but Radha would rather hang around with her childhood friend Suraj (goofball cutie and GOAT favorite Salman Khan), a successful pop musician. Gopal doesn’t tell Radha that he’s feeling neglected; Radha doesn’t catch on that Gopal is jealous of her closeness to Suraj; their marriage comes dangerously close to the brink before Suraj realizes what is going on and steps in to help them out. The script has some very sensitive moments, exploring the work that goes into really making a relationship out of a marriage. But the film doesn’t quite fire on all cylinders; the pacing is clunky, the mood melodramatic and contrived. And the songs – except for "Gale mein laal taai," a dream sequence number that I adore – range from unremarkable to awful.
Fanaa – This film marked the return of the actress named Kajol to the screen after a several-year hiatus to raise a young child. I had never seen Kajol, though she starred opposite Shah Rukh Khan in some of the biggest hits of the 1990s; because her comeback was so eagerly anticipated among fans of Hindi film, and because Fanaa paired her with GOAT favorite Aamir Khan, I looked forward to this one. Add to that the fact that I got to see it on the big screen in its first run, and my expectations were high. Unfortunately, Fanaa did not quite meet them. Its strength was the steamy romance between Kajol and Aamir – they set the screen on fire. The film also has a great soundtrack with some gorgeous picturizations. But the story had plot holes that a jetliner could fly through and action sequences lifted from old James Bond films, and these distracted from the searing beauty and heartbreak of the romance. When Kajol and Aamir were alone together on the screen, Fanaa sizzled. The rest of the time, it fell somewhere between flat and ridiculous.
Pyaasa – This 1957 film, which I selected on the recommendation of some of my friends at the BollyWHAT? discussion forums, has a very unusual hero – a starving, unrecognized poet Vijay (Guru Dutt). Early in the film, he is driven out of his mother’s home by his brothers, who think he’s a good-for-nothing layabout; they sell his life’s work, all of his poems, to a junk dealer as scrap paper. Left with nothing, he wanders the streets, encountering a prostitute (Waheeda Rehman, stunningly gorgeous and probably not more than 19 years old) and his old college flame (Mala Sinha), now married to a big-time publisher. As (through a twisting series of events) Vijay’s poems become known to the world, he is disillusioned by the constant jockeying of everyone around him to benefit from the success of his work. Pyaasa is a beautiful film, shot with breathtaking cinematography, and the songs – whch are meant to be Vijay’s poems – are uniquely lovely. (Unfortunately not all DVD editions subtitle the songs.) In one of its most interesting aspects, I was interested in the way the film was sensitive to the plight of prostitutes and nautch-girls, while at the same treating society women (represented by Mala Sinha's character) much less kindly. The downtrodden women were just trying to make a living and care for their children, and were demeaned and abused by the very men they serviced, while the society woman was exposed as a manipulative, selfish fraud. This is the kind of message I expect in a Deepa Mehta film, or perhaps as far back as Satyajit Ray - but I was (perhaps naively) surprised and pleased to see it in a mainstream 1957 film.
15 Park Avenue – in this 2005 film veteran art film writer-director Aparna Sen takes on an exploration of schizophrenia and its reverberations through several lives. Konkona Sen Sharma (Aparna’s daughter) gives a distressingly compelling performance as Mithi, stricken with schizophrenia as a young woman and now suffering elaborate, chilling delusions. She believes that she is married to Jojo Roy, a man she was engaged to prior to her final psychotic break. She is not-so-patiently cared for by her older sister Anju (my beloved Shabana Azmi), who is a driven and accomplished physics professor, but who can’t seem to manage a personal relationship. When the real Jojo reappears (Rahul Bose), all three of their lives are shaken. I expected a lot from this film – Aparna Sen has a stellar track record and the cast is fantastic – but 15 Park Avenue did not quite match my expectations. The early portions of the film were the strongest. Aparna did a brilliant job of making me squirm with discomfort watching some of the more difficult scenes, and handled the schizophrenia sensitively as well. But as delicate and spot-on as that aspect of the film was, many of the scenes without Konkona had a woodenness of dialogue that was distracting and disappointing. Shabana did a good job even with the weaker material she was given - her Annu was complex and subtle, part selfish, part protector. The fact that she was a scientist was, unfortunately, a token, a shorthand for her rationality and uber-competence. No delicate metaphors were built on this, though they could have been. (Still, as a former physicist, I got quite a charge out of listening to my beloved actress’s honey voice talking about quantum mechanics.) But Rahul Bose, though I like him, was not quite up to the task of giving life to Aparna's less well-crafted dialogue.
Hum dil de chuke sanam – This is a grand-scale Bollywood romance starring Aishwarya Rai and GOAT’s favorite goofball cutie Salman Khan. Recommended for a rainy afternoon’s lush fantasy. The plot is thin and predictable, and despite the opulence of the sets and costumes the production cuts costs in some classic Bollywood ways – the second half of the film, which is supposed to take place in Italy, was filmed in Budapest, and there’s nothing remotely Italian about the setting or the extras who wander about speaking Hungarian. But it has some of the most delightful song and dance I’ve seen in a Bollywood film – sometimes even as good as the song in dance in the otherwise weak Devdas, which (not coincidentally) had the same director and composer as Hum dil de chuke sanam. Not a bad film if you want to enjoy the all the outrageously good-looking actors, melodramatic romance, and decadent set pieces that Bollywood has to offer. Here’s a YouTube link to one of Hum dil de chuke sanam's delightful songs, "Dhola baje".
Dil se – This film is difficult to describe. It begins with a trope fairly common in Bollywood romance – boy Amar (Shah Rukh Khan) sees girl Meghna (Manisha Koirala), immediately decides they were made for eachother and begins to aggressively and obnoxiously pursue her. Only this time, the girl is a terrorist with a horrifyingly troubled past. Amar isn’t aware of Meghna’s dark story – he only perceives her sadness and mystery, and insists that he can save her. Though at moments he may manage to get through to her, Meghna is ultimately too deeply broken to allow someone to love her as Amar wishes to. I will give Dil se credit for having the courage to end its story messily and honestly – it follows through on the hopelessness of this pairing, rather than tacking on an inappropriate and jarring happy ending. It also features some absolutely gorgeous cinematography, including five or so lusciously picturized songs comprising the infectious, driving A.R. Rahman score. Here is a YouTube link to a very famous dance number from Dil se, the addictive song "Chaiyya chaiyya," shot on top of a moving train.
Disco Dancer – The 80s were as painful for Bollywood as they were in the west. And Disco Dancer is 80s Bollywood at its cheesy, campy, nonsensical worst. But it is just so much fun that it’s hard to resist, and that’s why this film – the foremost exemplar of a sub-genre of disco films from that era – is such a cult classic today. In a film with a name like Disco Dancer of course the focus has to be on the songs – and these are catchy, even addictive, with deliciously awful picturizations. The song that opens the film, "Goron ki na kalon ki," is actually a legitimately good filmi song, and immediately became one of my favorites. But the highlight is the title song, "I Am a Disco Dancer," with its infectious chorus that just makes you want to get up and sing along with the film’s big-hearted hero Jimmy. You can watch the song by clicking on the link, but I think it must be seen in context to really be fully appreciated. A comprehensive (though not flattering) review and summary of the film can be found here. And if you watch this film, look out for an appearance by Om Puri - an actor with serious arthouse creds. I can't imagine what led him to take this part!
See you in Part V...
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