Tag Archives: fanboy

September 7, 2012 · 2:05 pm

Review: To Rome With Love

Sometimes, all you need is a song.

Woody Allen’s latest film opens and closes with the classic Volare, most apropos considering just how dreamy a song To Rome With Love itself proves to be. A work of unashamed whimsy thoroughly drenched in sunlight — and maybe a drop or three of moonshine — this is a lark, a terrifically enjoyable and vibrant motion picture that buoys the spirits and refreshes our jaded-jangled nerves. I, for one, must confess that I feared Woody may well have lost the vim needed to concoct this merry a film, saving his odder ideas for his prose excursions. But no fear. To Rome With Love is the cinematic equivalent of a superlative jug of sangria.

There are four streams of story at play, four incredibly different tales that do not deign to intersect, but work alongside regardless — like serendipitously stuck pages from an idea-crammed notebook — because of the director’s marvellously breezy touch. The rivulets themselves are no more than skits, four kooky what-if analogues, but the mastery lies in the way Allen stirs them — these stories that don’t even share the same time-frame; one takes place over a long summer, one over a singular afternoon — seamlessly into and across each other, making for a delightful mood piece that remains constantly enchanting, thanks in no small measure to its immaculately picked cast.

An architect finds a younger echo of himself, torn between a stable relationship and the tumultuous potential of infidelity. A man ordinary in every way wakes up famouser than Mussolini. One of the greatest voices in the world only works when moistened enough. A newlywed pair needs severe loosening up; and the Romans are only too glad to oblige. As concepts, these may well involve thinko subjects like hindsight and fame, reticence and infidelity, but instead of aggressively tackling ‘em, Allen chooses to tickle. And this he does with consummate skill, peopling his strands with fascinating characters and filling their mouths with the kind of dialogue only he can conjure.

There is much joy to be found in watching the stories unravel in their wonderfully unpredictable ways, so I’ll ruin not the plots but concentrate instead on the spells cast between the lines: on the way a brassy wife with the best lines in the film (Judy Davis) stays relentlessly hard to her opera-destroying husband, while offhandedly and constantly shielding him from highly coherent newspaper criticism; on a young wife (Alessandra Mastronardi) making peace with everlasting regret for want of the stories she may gather for her grandchildren; on the poser we can entirely see through (Ellen Page) and are allured by nonetheless; and on how being photographed is mostly worth the bother.

There is tremendous magic afoot, but Allen sprinkles it about judiciously, in very varied measure: One architect conjures another up entirely, but the events resulting from this quirky setup are the realest of them all. Meanwhile, the story of the young couple stays almost entirely plausible, but is sculpted from utter happenstance. The other two stories involve a man singing about a great clown and a man proving himself to be one. It’s a hard film, as you might imagine, to not constantly smile at. It is also a gorgeous one, with cinematographer Darius Khondji vividly painting a hallucinatory, hauntingly beguiling Rome.

The cast, as said, is excellent. Mastronardi, as the somewhat naive wife, gives the film’s finest, most vulnerable performance, while Penelope Cruz turns effortlessly and smoulderingly into a human Jessica Rabbit. Page’s artist-craving ingenue is one of Allen’s great female characters, and Alec Baldwin comes across stronger, and more evocative, than he’s been on the big screen in years. Famed tenor Fabio Armiliato sportingly provides both great vocal chords and a very likeable character, and Roberto Benigni, paddling down his story nearly solo, gives us something very special. The wonderful Jesse Eisenberg turns out to be an inspired choice for an Allen-substitute, and then there’s Woody himself, having a whale of a time: at lunch, forced to back off a touchy topic of conversation, the Allen character miraculously walks the rope between polite and pushy, shutting up agreeably but unable to bottle up his enthusiasm, eventually miming for emphasis. Vintage Woody, this.

The master is now 76, and may he never cork that loony imagination. He might merely want to amble around Rome whistling to himself, but, even done as casually, the results are often symphonic. You just need to listen right. If he now feels like cutting up some fruit into chunks and tossing it into an iced jug of not-topshelf wine, those of us complaining and comparing are the ones losing out. Drink up.

Rating: 4 stars

~

First published Rediff, September 7, 2012

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June 29, 2012 · 12:32 pm

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man soars

We’ve seen it before, of course. We know he gets bitten by accident, yahoos about his powers, learns tragically about power and responsibility, and is surprisingly adept at sewing himself a spandex costume with significant embellishment. The beats aren’t new, and — this is crucial — they shouldn’t be. Watching a superhero origin story is like watching yet another cinematic troupe play out a Shakespearean saga, an analogy that Stan Lee, with his faux-Bard posturing, might like. There are liberties taken, certainly, but the essence of it all — whether the movie is directed by the fortunately named Marc Webb or Sam Raimi or by us, with a phalanx of action figures duking it out in bed — is the same.

And the reason Spider-Man stands at the very top of the increasingly cluttered superhero heap — a heap made up of aliens and mutants and shadowy vigilantes and men with really long fingernails — is because there’s a real man underneath that mask. Other heroes veer wildly in personality and character and scope based on writers and artists working on them, but there is only one Peter Parker. One who is as much about saving the day as he is about the frustration of not having done it more seamlessly; one who is as much about the utter inability to ask a girl out as he is about being a genius scientist; as much about heart, then, as he is about heroics. And, given he’s a high schooler, the mask is all about acting out.

Webb’s film starts with a knee-high Peter Parker, playing hide and seek with wily parents who elaborately balance hats on broomsticks to confuse the child. He isn’t the only one hunting for them, even though that hunt becomes a way of life as he grows up and continues to wonder where — and why — they hid. Relentlessly, recklessly he fumbles his way toward answers… But while the film begins with the boy, it only genuinely kicks off with the girl. Making Parker’s jaw drop with her go-go boots and the Vonnegut novel in her hand, Gwen Stacy is a confident, striking platinum blonde heroine who melts our boy right through. It is this impulsive, heady romance that gives a vitally thumping bassline to The Amazing Spider-Man. Even as a slithering foe (compared, in the script, to Godzilla) raises the story’s stakes and lends it hihat reptilian chills.

Dr Curt Connors, while lacking of limb, is anything but ‘armless. (Sorry, couldn’t resist. Spidey’d get it.) A scientist trying to harness the regenerative power of lizards, he grows back his right arm but, in the process, turns into the long-tongued Lizard, a monster who wants to create an equally scaly army. Cue action sequences, each amplified by how genuinely formidable this foe looks. For a film shot in 3D, this doesn’t take gimmicky advantage of the format as often, but when things roll, they really roll. The action is lucid, urgent and importantly imaginative — Spidey seems to be improvising, desperately, on the fly — and the bits when Webb lets us look through those friendly neighbourhood eyes as he careens dramatically around the city, putting us right in the middle of a rollercoaster ride, are worth the IMAX prices. 3D this one, true believers.

Strangely for a superhero blockbuster, however, the sentiments overwhelm the setpieces. For one, the cast is smashing. Andrew Garfield brings a wiry jumpiness to Parker, a constant nervous energy that keeps the character constantly unpredictable. Emma Stone is a treat as Gwen Stacy, ebullient and fresh enough to make up for decades of poorly-cast love interests in superhero movies. Martin Sheen is a very solid Uncle Ben (though it does occasionally seem like the President’s turned into a handyman) while Sally Field’s Aunt May doesn’t click at all, forever seeming like a presence too far from Peter’s centre. Rhys Ifans is a great Connors and a fine Lizard, further made fearsome by the humanity he brings to the part. And James Horner hasn’t sounded this good in decades.

Webb’s strength as a director lies in just how smoothly he flips genres, switching between gears with immaculate ease. Snap, it’s a coming of age story, snap, it’s about boy meets girl, snap, it’s Jurassic Park, snap, it’s the best darned Stan Lee cameo in the Marvel universe, snap, it’s a blockbuster, snap, snap, snap. And despite maniacal gearshifting — and some initial sluggishness — he keeps slowing down to close in on the nuances: on a boy who’d rather use a strand of webbing than reveal intent or identity, on a superhero learning on the job, on a girl falling head-first in love knowing she’s in trouble, on promises made and promises broken.

And on Spider-Man, who scuttles. His movements aren’t immediately graceful, often a flailing, akimbo mess. Garfield gives the character stammering nerves and Webb visually jerks him like a whimsical puppeteer, moving his limbs before the rest of him. It’s a dynamic new way to see Spidey on screen, and as he gets better — both at his job and at realising just what his job is — this new Spider-Man soars. And Webb lets us tag along for the ride.

Rating: 4 stars

~

First published Rediff, June 29, 2012

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June 8, 2012 · 9:33 am

Review: Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai

At first glance, the irony is staggering. A country pretending to be another, brighter country, being shown up by a film that itself borrows form and content from another country. Yet so strident is Dibakar Banerjee’s voice as a filmmaker that even this adaptation — of Vassilis Vassilikos’ Z, about a wholly different time and political situation — is turned into a strikingly relevant story of our times and our crimes. From collision to collusion, it’s remarkable — and alarming — how a novel about a specific real-life assassination in Greece can be transposed onto a local, current setting, as Banerjee and co-writer Urmi Juvekar very effectively make the story ours. The fact that this can at all be done, of course, goes beyond irony and into absurdity, and this futility of man versus machine fuels both Banerjee’s Shanghai and the original Z. The wrong remains the same.

The time is now, the location pointedly fictional and decidedly familiar. Banerjee’s burgeoning Bharatnagar is the crown jewel of its rotund Chief Minister’s forward-thinking (and builder-friendly) new state. Her political party is unsubtly called IBP, which stands for India Bane Pardes, a frighteningly believable extension of the India Shining wool pulled over offscreen voter eyes. Investments are on the up, ambitious structures with futuristic names are poised to hoist a skyline that never was, and all is well with the overfed world. Or all would be, if not for social activists determined to ask sticky questions and rally the exploited masses. And thus is a stone hurled at activism’s head.

Dr Ahemadi, struck by said rock, reaches his makeshift stage undeterred and brushes it off dryly, calling it hail. Cue applause. The man is a convincing speaker, a natural leader of emphatic grace and significant charisma, and a serious itch IBP can’t wait to scratch. Or scratch out. Ahemadi finishes speaking and is mowed down in what the police explain away as a drunk-driving case. The activists are enraged and Ahemadi’s wife, declaring the incident a premeditated attack, cries out for justice on national TV, forcing the Government to set up a routine enquiry. The film then unfolds out into a constantly tense procedural with unlikely protagonists, a dark and shadowy ride that lives up to its immense promise.

Banerjee’s genius has always been most visible in his meticulous detailing, and this latest film is expectedly crammed with beautiful nuance. A minister strikes poses alone ahead of a green screen, his droves of supporters to be chromakeyed in later. An opportunistic hoodlum takes English language classes, eager to score a job where he can wear a necktie. An IAS officer, in turn, warily slips his tie on only for meetings, and conducts his evening prayers with the help of a laptop. High-ranking policemen play badminton, and swarthy politicians jog on treadmills with assistants standing by holding water and snacks. And helpless indecision is expressed fantastically by a man twirling a paneer tikka, too worried to actually eat it. The little touches are smashing, fleshing out most of the characters and making them into more than words and actors.

Yet what words, what actors. Emraan Hashmi, as the scruffy videographer out for a quick buck, delivers a knockout punch as he masters a complicated role. From his infuriatingly goofy laugh to poor attempts at making conversation, Hashmi proves himself the best of a very fine ensemble. He occasionally shoots porn — this is off-camera, we see him ask his subjects to clear up and hear the hurried sounds of straps and zippers — and later, when the film’s heroine is about to sit on his bed, he instinctively barks that she sit somewhere else, because the bed’s dirty. It’s a throwaway grunt but Hashmi nails it — just like he nails highly energetic pelvic thrusts in a streetdance, one where he keeps biting his tongue, faux-scandalised by the words of the song. It’s one of the best performances from one of our leading men in quite some time, and in one chilling pre-climactic moment, when sitting on the floor and confounded by the situation, his plaintive wail is fittingly reminiscent of the late great Ravi Baswani’s angst in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’s darkest minute. Bravo.

Pitobash Tripathy is a treat, uninhibited enough to propel the narrative forward himself. As the ambitious thug wondering what they call ‘mutton’ in English, he’s a firecracker with a very distinctive screen presence. While on presence, Bangla veteran Prosenjit Chatterjee is perfectly cast as the unflinching rabble-rouser, commanding even with his matinee-idol persona muted. Farooque Shaikh is reliably excellent, while Abhay Deol manages to make his silences count. Playing an IAS officer applauding an item song with an eye on a Stockholm assignment, Deol wears his inscrutability thickly and delivers a strong performance. Kalki Koechlin is given a newly-minted character that is flawed from the start, a too-defiant activist who spends most of the film wound unbearably, annoyingly tight, but this is made up for by a moment near the end of the film where she explodes into a magnificent mess. It’s the film’s most searingly honest moment.

Banerjee’s film borrows from Costa Gavras’ 1969 adaptation of Z frequently, with a photographer carrying his camera consistently near his torso, scrutinisingly tight close-ups and a nearly-identical scene with a bathroom mirror, but, most critically, he follows the narrative pace almost exactly, and keeps up perfectly, even if the new version is more dramatic. It is the departures from the blueprint that don’t always work, like the creation of Kalki’s character and turning her into a lone crusader, or the climactic piece of evidence that’s impossible to swallow and wraps up the proceedings all too conveniently. And yet Banerjee must be lauded for not dumbing things down and creating a mature, serious film that engages, thrills and amuses.

Z was named after an iconic one-letter cry of Greek protest, but Shanghai is all Dibakar, who we must lift on our shoulders with grateful pride. And we must exult in the fact that this D is never silent.

Rating: 4 stars

~

First published Rediff.com, 8th June, 2012

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June 6, 2012 · 10:50 am

The Prometheus Review: Scott (Ridley) Versus The World

33 years after Alien comes the grand but unfulfilling Prometheus.

 

Otherworldly seas cascade outwards, terrific 3D suggesting they might wet the seat ahead of you. In a pristine spacecraft — with efficient yet showy design Stanley Kubrick would look favorably upon — a blonde robot with Lawrence Of Arabia’s hair walks about in flip-flops, learning languages and spying on dreams. The spacecraft, named Prometheus, reaches its destination. Cryogenically asleep humans are nudged awake, and missions outlined. ‘God does not build in straight lines,’ says a scientist as they land ahead of a visibly engineered settlement. Clinically clean cinema, at its most poetic.

It is elegant buildup, stark naked — and yet gorgeous — exposition, an effort of documentarian minimalism, offset by striking beauty. An effort that resuscitates lost faith in Ridley Scott. Back in 1979, the first Alien film was a masterpiece of psychological horror. Scott showcased the remarkable work of Swiss surrealist HR Giger, whose revolutionary creature designs became motion picture landmarks, taking up permanent positions in our collective nightmares. While thematically sophisticated, Alien had the heart of a slasher movie set in breathless space, to a breathless pace.

Prometheus has a very different heart. Designed to be epic, its scale drops the jaw by default. It poses a gigantic theological conundrum, questions the gods in Erich von Däniken fashion, and masterfully processes mostly everything impassively, through the eyes of the aforementioned robot, played by an astonishingly antiseptic Michael Fassbender. It is a film of immense craft, but the ticker — the visceral thrill, the stomach-churning alarm, the bonafide badassery — is muted. Prometheus stays spectacular till the spectacle actually begins. After which it becomes generically gooey. This film’s heart beats from under immaculately nailed floorboards, and the tale it tells is, eventually, quite banal.

It is also a tale of desperation and commerce, as Scott glosses tragically over the genuinely promising questions posed by the film, conveniently saving the answers for another sequel. Things then, after the excellent first hour, are resultantly rather weak. And sometimes handled with jarringly soap-operatic clumsiness. The adrenalin too runs cold; what good is an Alien film that doesn’t even once compel you to turn away, revolted?

Fassbender, as mentioned, is flawless, while Charlize Theron, for the second week running, finds herself straddled with a character too icy to be interesting. The screen-commanding Idris Elba is given too little to do, and Noomi Rapace, while valiantly trying to show her tough, Dragon Tattoo‘d edge, is decidedly not in the league of Sigourney Weaver, who I — and this film — much miss. Not missed is Giger, who contributes new designs consistent to his original work on the films, design that continues to astound.

It says an awful lot about a film questioning humanity that a robot emerges as its most fascinating character, and that may well be intentional. It is more likely, however, that Fassbender’s work as this nicely-nosed Pinocchio elevates the film. Smartly synthetic yet peculiarly vulnerable, the actor delivers an evocative performance, one so gray it feels labyrinthian. More than the scale and the visuals, Fassbender justifies the ticket price.

At a point in the film, that wondrous robot questions his own existence, and is brusquely told that humans made him merely because they can. He takes the jab in his stride and wonders how mankind would feel were their creators to say the same thing. At 74, Ridley Scott has shown he can. But is that truly reason enough?

~

First published Mumbai Mirror, June 6, 2012

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April 25, 2012 · 2:54 pm

The director you need to know

A brief introduction to the director of The Avengers. (And Firefly.)

 

Back in the winter of 2007 and stretching right into early 2008, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, crippling both Hollywood and American television. Films were halted mid-schedule, award shows were boycotted, and even the most successful TV shows were forced into a hiatus. It was at this time that writer and director Joss Whedon took a bunch of already successful television faces — Neil Patrick Harris from How I Met Your Mother, Nathan Fillion from Castle (and Whedon’s own Firefly), Internet sensation Felicia Day, and Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory — and threw them into a bewilderingly bizarre musical cauldron called Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, an irresistible web series you should watch immediately if you haven’t yet.

This Friday, Whedon does almost exactly the same thing, save for a few vital differences: instead of a dinky web series he’s delivering a $200 million behemoth; each primary character in the film has had their own massive summer hits made largely only to make the existence of this mega-movie a possibility; oh, and his all-star lineup comprises of Earth’s mightiest superheroes. (Also, one doubts that The Hulk or Black Widow will break into song. But hey, it’s Whedon.)

Right now, with The Avengers due to release this week and Whedon’s indie feature Cabin In The Woods — hailed as a postmodern (and yet scary) love-letter to the horror film — having hit theatres just over a fortnight ago, the 47-year-old director could be excused for putting his feet up. Instead, we’ll soon see his deliciously cast version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, something he filmed in twelve days, mostly between breaks of Avengers filming. If the cult of Whedon grows and grows at this rate, we might even (cross your fingers as you read the next four words) see Firefly brought back.

It *still* hurts, you see. Along with Mitchell Hurwitz’s Arrested Development, Whedon’s Firefly was one of the smartest shows on television, and the cancellation of these two remarkable shows alone is basis for the compelling argument against this being America’s golden age of TV. A savagely sharp and immensely witty science-fiction ‘Western’, Firefly was snatched away from us after only 11 episodes. We got some closure with its movie spinoff Serenity, just as well-crafted, but the fanboy forearm calls for a more regular jab.

Son and grandson to screenwriting men, Whedon kicked things off with the highly blonde (entertaining but daft) Buffy The Vampire Slayer, a movie that went nowhere until he changed its spirit and made it into a highly successful television show with a fanatical following. And then he wrote comic books.

But not just any comic books. Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men showed magnificient narrative dexterity, and his later work on The Runaways was just as incisive. We comic fans often dream of a great comic writer being given a comic book movie — someone let Jeph Loeb write Batman, or just look at Frank Miller co-creating the Sin City film — but Marvel was the first to generate a fanboy hallelujah just by announcing that Whedon will hold the reins.

I haven’t seen the film yet — a statement that will be untrue by the time you read this column — but I don’t need to read rapturous reviews to know that Whedon will deliver something special. Go this weekend.

~

First published Mumbai Mirror, April 25, 2012

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April 11, 2012 · 10:07 am

The Spy Who Loved Martinis

The upcoming Bond film has a grim fate in store for 007.

 

Olives are not the only fruit.

Even as Hawkeye Pierce declared those of them doused in gin the only green vegetables he ate, a particular British secret agent scoffed at olives in his drink. Having cottoned on to the old bartender trick to fill a glass with large olives to skimp on the actual sauce, Ian Fleming’s James Bond preferred less obtrusive garnish for his cocktail, like a lemon peel. And unlike gin, which bruises easy, it’s perfectly permissible to shake vodka, which becomes colder on shaking. Hence those infamous dry vodka martinis ordered the way Sean Connery did.

Churchill opted for a glass of iced gin, drunk while looking at a bottle of vermouth; Noel Coward shook his glass in the direction of Italy, the land of the finest vermouth. Insisting on impossibly dry martinis — the more the spirit, the lesser the vermouth — has traditionally been part male-posturing, part call for potency.

True connoisseurs play it differently. In his very first novel Casino Royale, Bond put together a striking East-meets-West martini in honour of his heroine, Vesper Lynd. Combining British gin (3 measures) and Russian vodka (1 measure) with a half-measure of Kina Lillet, a bitter orangey aperitif, the drink Bond invents — “Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large, thin slice of lemon peel,” he tells the attentive barman, later lamenting the fact that vodka from potatoes was used instead of grain vodka — is one he never revisits after Lynd is killed at the end of the novel.

The Vesper is a splendid concoction, and one that packs a nuclear wallop. Bond’s CIA chum Felix Leiter is taken aback by the measures. “When I’m… er… concentrating,” James explains, “I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad.” Classic 007, a tad drier than his drink.

All that changes quite drastically in the upcoming Bond film Skyfall, where that dashing secret agent of impeccable taste will order himself… a Heineken. The beer manufacturer, long been associated with the brand, is now forcing the cash-strapped producers to make James chug their wares. Perhaps even (horror of horrors) from a can. Egad.

Now this is going too far. Connery’s suits in the first few films, tailored by Anthony Sinclair of Savile Row, were fitted so immaculately that he eschewed belts and suspenders. By film 17, Pierce Brosnan was in Italian suits and had swapped his iconic Aston Martin for a generically flashy BMW. Bond’s innate Britishness, his ridiculously On Her Majesty’s Secret Service ways, has increasingly and tragically been homogenised, moulded to more modern tastes. And to sponsor demands.

As lovers of Bondage, we’ve sat back and accepted it all, even his current blonditude. We’ve taken it all on the chin. But leave the Commander’s damned martinis alone.

In Kingsley Amis’ Book Of Bond, the advice he gives double-o-aspirants about beer is that “you drink it occasionally; In Geneva, a Löwenbräu; in the States, a Miller’s High Life, a couple of Red Stripes in Jamaica and as many as four steins of local brew in Munich if you find yourself with an ex-Luftwafffe pilot. But eschew English beer. It, like cider, belongs in pubs and 007 does not.” As kids nowadays succinctly say, Word.

And here we have the vile Heineken. Shudder. It’s not even drinkable by beer standards. This is as diabolical a move from the Dutch firm as SMERSH could dream of, and one can pray that James winces ever so slightly — but unmistakably — at his first sip. It’s what Fleming’s man would have done. Shaken, just a bit.

~

First published Mumbai Mirror , April 11, 2012

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April 9, 2012 · 12:46 pm

A History Of Silence

In which I celebrate my favourite Vidhu Vinod Chopra film.

 

Vidhu Vinod Chopra was 29 years old when he made Khamosh, and to me, coming from a bright young filmmaker flying the independent flag high, the cunning murder mystery always contained elements of wish-fulfilment. Set on a fictional movie set with Sadashiv Amrapurkar as a servile director eager to please everyone (except naturally the writer), the film casts actors as fictional versions of themselves, under their own names: Soni Razdan plays an actress likely to speak in English even if her character won’t; Shabana Azmi plays the kind of heroine who wins successive National Awards and yet acts in a highly commercial melodrama; and Amol Palekar stars as a matinee idol so popular all are bullish about his election prospects. (“MGR, NTR, Palekar!” is the cry, with the leading man heralded as the country’s biggest star.)

With selected theatres currently celebrating 30 years of Vinod Chopra Productions, it is a fine time to revisit Chopra’s gangland masterpiece, Parinda, with many of my generation awestruck as they watch it in theatres for the first time. I was 8 when it originally released. A terrifically taut drama that unspools with ruthless elegance and frequently shocks us, thanks to both cinematic craft and emotional heft, Parinda is unquestionably one of the finest Hindi language films of the last thirty years. But you know that already.

No, this column is about Khamosh, the 1985 film that tells you a lot more about Vinod Chopra than any of his subsequent features. Unravelling with breathless grace, the plot is that of a classic whodunnit, a murder mystery on the sets of a film being shot in a small Kashmir town. Crammed with some of the finest actors in the history of Hindi film — Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapoor, Ajit Vachchani and Sushma Seth fill out the cast — Khamosh is a wickedly clever thriller with smashing characters, a film impossible to look away from. Chopra, aided by editing goddess Renu Saluja, demonstrates an economy of storytelling currently unfathomable in our overlong cinema, and pours out the simple but compelling plot through minimal rivulets of information even as the narrative chugs along quick as can be: keeping his audience guessing, second-guessing, wondering. Keeping them hooked as he masterfully reels it all in.

It is a stunning ensemble, with Razdan, Azmi and Veerendra Saxena standing out, and top honours won by dazzling Naseer, his intensity and dramatic fury taking not just antagonists but also the film’s very plot by the collar. Pankaj Kapoor, as the producer’s junkie son, is frighteningly fine if a trifle overplayed, while it is amusing to see Sudhir Mishra play Michael, the film’s cameraman. The joy is in the detailing, the on-set snark, the whimsy. Besides the meta-celebration of small-budget cinema and its actors, Khamosh also contains a number of MacGuffins and — in a truly inspired fanboy moment — a marvellous sequence which simultaneously pays tribute to both Psycho and The Godfather.

I have here lamented, in a previous column, our current cinema’s lack of attempts in the whodunnit genre. The heartwarming success of Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani — a film more enjoyable for texture than plot — might give the ever-compelling genre a fillip, and one can only hope for more mystery in our movies. And for a few films that learn from Chopra’s lethal masterstroke. As silent — or as silencing — as a guillotine.

~

For your viewing pleasure: Khamosh, in its entirety, on YouTube

First published Mumbai Mirror, April 4, 2012

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March 28, 2012 · 11:19 am

“Cue COOL music.”

Merely reading a Tarantino script beats watching most movies.

 

In the Quentin Tarantino universe, everything is connected. I brought in Tuesday by rereading the final draft of the screenplay of his upcoming Django Unchained, only to realise that March 27 happens to be the director’s birthday. That manner of happenstance is just a taste of the sort of pop cultural synchronicity the director, now 49, thrives on, lining up his self-referential ducks all in a row to shoot them down all at once in a glorious meta-textual blitz of bullets and homages, in a style so unique that even a cinematic cliché like the Mexican Standoff – where everyone points a gun at everyone else – is turned on its head and made more Quentinian than Mexican. (And yes, Mr Pink runs away with the money.)

Reading a Tarantino script is a thrilling act, one that nearly always exceeds expectations. He might only be supposed to blow the bloody doors off, but then Tarantino – blessed, dyslexic, grammatically-challenged Tarantino — never quite made his peace with ‘supposed.’ Which is why well before his film starts shooting, he leaks the full script online, typos and all. As if to challenge us to eat it up, chew down every single spoiler, literally spell out exactly what to expect…  And then he lights the words on fire and watches our all-knowing heads spin.

The reading comes doused in the basest of temptation. You know reading the screenplay will let you in on every secret, and take away the element of surprise. Wouldn’t you rather just wait and be wowed on screen? You know you shouldn’t read it, right? Sure. I used to think that before I read Inglourious Basterds, and gasped at the audacity of that first scene, that mammoth twenty-three page opening conversation scene that had me breathless just reading it aloud and watching it unfold in my head. When I finally saw the scene several months later, it was like watching a spectacular novel adapted perfectly onto screen. The gasps were all in place, every single one of them. And they remain thus every time I watch the film.

It helps that Tarantino is an electrifying writer, one whose narrative is made of both pulpy shock and highly effective storytelling. The dialogue is, of course, inimitably crackerjack, and the style so vividly visual you can’t help but picture it. It’s all immensely evocative, and while I’d like to believe years of awestruck gazing at Tarantino’s oeuvre would let us in on it, would let us picture the scene just as he’s going to show it to us, it really doesn’t. He’s still going to punch your senses right in the gut, knocking you out either with visuals or pace or improvisation or, often, with a staggeringly visceral choice of music.

And maybe he just picks his songs at the end, filling in those aural blanks when everything else is in place, or maybe there are some cards even he likes to play close to his chest, but the script doesn’t give these away. All the script says is “Cue COOL music,” and lets the reading brain explode with possibility, just as it does when the camera moves away from the ear-slicing and lets us fill in our own horror.

I urge those of you with an interest in cinema, in screenwriting and in Tarantino to read the Django Unchained script, available easily enough online with some smart Googling, for this Southern – a black cowboy film set in the South, which means its not a Western – may well be his most brutal and most important film. Or just a helluva hoot that earns Leonardo DiCaprio another Oscar nomination.

Either way, Mister Tarantino, thank you – for the words that come before the images do. And here’s wishing you a Happy Birthday.

(Cue COOL music.)

~

First published Mumbai Mirror, March 28, 2012

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March 12, 2012 · 4:19 pm

Old magicians, new tricks

Martin Scorsese casts a spell with his first family film.

I have always been distrustful of high-heeled shoes. While adorning female feet, they’ve struck me at various points of my life as precarious, duplicitous and even deceitfully intimidating, with a rapier-sharp stiletto heel more than capable of cutting through both a wayward-waltzing big toe and a reluctant wallet. And Martin Scorsese hasn’t helped their case. In his magnificent new film Hugo, the master filmmaker shows us great cinema — cinema at its brightest, most inventive and pathbreaking — and then literally sets the reels on fire. Unlike in Quentin Tarantino’s recent revisionist masterpiece, flaming celluloid here does not kill dictators and win a war; no, Scorsese’s usage is significantly more inglorious, so to speak: in Hugo, strips of surrealist fancy and moments of movie whimsy are melted down to make heels for women’s shoes.

Hugo, releasing in India in March and nominated in the major categories at this weekend’s Academy Awards, is an achingly beautiful film. An adaptation of Brian Setznick’s graphic novel The Invention Of Hugo Cabret, it is unlike anything from Scorsese’s fabled filmography — proudly profane, preternaturally pop-soundtracked and gloriously gun-filled — and yet has his signature emblazoned across every painstakingly constructed frame. It might be his first ‘family film,’ certainly, but his films have always been about family. This one, about a wide-eyed boy gulping in the miracles of cinema, merely seems more autobiographical.

Set mostly in a French railway station (and also notably *behind* its numerous clock-faces), this is the story of 11-year-old Hugo Cabret, who, having inherited clockwork precision from his late watchmaker father, tirelessly labours at fixing the broken automaton they worked on together. This involves stealing spare parts from the station’s toystore, run by the crotchety George Méliés, a grump who happens to share his name with cinema’s first real magician. As Hugo, and Méliés’ literature-loving godchild Isabelle, embark on an adventure, Scorsese literally winds the clock back and shows us how it’s done, lovingly detailing gears and sprockets and taking us to libraries where books literally come alive — pictures of movies turning into moving pictures — in front of incredulous children, even as the director turns us all into just that.

There is much attention to detail in this story of love, love for images and even, indeed, for words — James Joyce has a walk-on cameo, and Isabelle is far more impressed by Hugo’s correct use of the word ‘panache’ than his pluck or tinkering skills — and cast-members themselves seem enchanted as they walk through Scorsese’s splendidly recreated sets, especially the movie sets of movie sets.

Hugo also marks Scorsese’s first foray into 3D, and it’s remarkably ingenious how he takes cinema’s newest storytelling device, still in its teething stage, and uses it to pen his love letter to the movies, three-dimensionally paying tribute to the giants of early cinema, most notably to the Lumiére Brothers’ iconic 1896 film, Arrival Of A Train At The Station, a film that, at the time, had horror-struck audiences screaming and struggling to get out of their seats, thinking the black and white locomotive was coming straight at them.

There is some gimmickry then, yes, but when the balance between story and spectacle is so perfectly struck, the word wizardry seems a lot more appropriate. Scorsese’s homage to Méliés introduces us all to his pioneering work, while allowing one of the finest filmmakers of our time to indulge in his own immodest prestidigitation.

And for that, for restoring our faith in the rabbits that live exclusively in cinematic top hats, we must thank him. His name is Marty, and he can make fly.

~

First published Mumbai Mirror, February 22, 2012

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February 29, 2012 · 10:47 am

Conquering the Oscars, with one leg

Screen goddesses don’t come with training heels.

Black dresses don’t have to be little when you’re Angelina Jolie. It was a particularly predictable and soporific night at the Oscars, when Jolie walked across the stage, her infamous lips red like a messily fed vampire, her right leg imperiously showing through a black Versace dress with a slit so high it looked slashed by an indiscreet samurai sword. Beaming ear to ear, she took the microphone and thrust out her bare leg, left hand on her hip like a comic-book superheroine. Jessica Rabbit would have trouble competing as Angelina held her pose, basking in the fact that she made us all hold our breaths. And so it was that Angelina Jolie, who did not appear on screen in all of 2011, conquered the Oscar telecast – and she did it with one leg.

The amazing thing about Jolie and her ‘come look at me’ act wasn’t the right leg itself (spectacular as that was) but her overwhelming, impossible confidence, the sheer larger-than-life aura she radiated, the ridiculous entitlement with which she breezed in and decided to own the room. And what a room to own. One can’t be trained to become a screen goddess, and no matter what you may think of her, there is only one Angelina Jolie.

Like there will ever be only one Marilyn.

Michelle Williams is everything in My Week With Marilyn. Just not Marilyn.

The multitalented Michelle Williams is one of Hollywood’s most thrilling actresses, and her work in My Week With Marilyn is extraordinary, a sensitive and vulnerable portrayal of a week in the life of the most iconic woman who ever lived. It is a dazzling piece of acting, one true to the film’s spirit and one that impresses consistently. Except Williams is not Marilyn, and that difference – that difference she cannot be blamed for – sneaks in and lets the air out of the painstakingly inflated balloon. Just last week I watched The Prince And The Showgirl, the 1957 film Monroe made with Laurence Olivier, the making of which is featured in My Week With Marilyn, and the gulf between the two is too massive. At her strongest moments, Williams is a lovely caricature; at her weakest, a poor mimic. It is an inevitable comparison, especially since the new film chooses to include scenes of the old film, and Williams, pretty, vacant Williams, pales in comparison to that sexiest of goddesses in cinema’s pantheon, one who can’t be replicated.

It’s exactly like watching the electrifying James Franco – so sublime at playing Allen Ginsberg – utterly fail at being James Dean.

Meanwhile, the indefatigable Meryl Streep – the lady the Academy nominates by default every year and then fills the four remaining slots on the ballot – played another iconic woman, another woman impossible to forget. The Iron Lady is a significantly flawed film, but Streep’s performance is a work of chameleonic grace, as well as much more. Her Margaret Thatcher is ambitious, self-serving, ruthless, overachieving and yet, like the most memorable of movie monsters, capable of drawing out whatever sympathy we have to give. Like with James Mason’s Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, or Frank Langella’s Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon, we are awestruck by how an actor has taken a real-life personage we have been conditioned to loathe, and yet won us over. And Streep does it beautifully.

Williams gives her all to the part, and is most impressive. Yet Streep, who rightfully beat her for the Best Actress Oscar, had the fight in the bag all along: after all, Maggie Thatcher never stood atop a subway grate and let her dress fly up.

~

First published Mumbai Mirror, February 29, 2012

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