Movie Review: 36 Chowringhee Lane

36 Chowringhee Lane, the directorial debut of Aparna Sen in 1981, is well deservedly among the best alternative Indian cinema. Aparna Sen has been a successful actress since her debut at 16 years of age in Satyajit Ray's Teen Kanya. Since then she has acted in a number of Bengali movies and in alternative Indian movies as well as acting in a few Merchant-Ivory movies. Since 36 Chowringhee lane she went on to make a number of movies in Bengali and English, including her latest movie, Mr. & Mrs. Iyer.

36 Chowringhee Lane, is the story of an old Anglo-Indian school teacher in Calcutta. The movie is set in the late 70s, more than 30 years after India achieved its independence from the British. Jennifer Kendal plays the school teacher, Miss Violet Stoneham. She lives alone (with her cat Sir Toby) and has a brother Eddie in an old age home. Eddie is played by Geoffrey Kendal, the father of Jennifer. Her lonely life is very structured with visiting the graveyard, teaching at the school and visiting her diabetic brother at the old age home. Her life has become more lonely since her loving niece, Rosemary (Soni Razdan) has gotten married and gone away to Australia. This lonely life gets a revival when she runs into one of her ex-students Nandita ( Debashree Roy) one Christmas morning. Nandita and her boyfriend Samaresh Moitra get invited to her house for a cup of coffee since it is Christmas day. They acquiesce to go to her place much to Samaresh's dismay since he wanted to go on a Taxi ride somewhere so they could neck. With hard to find places of solitude, they fall in love with Miss Stoneham's house and think it would save them a bundle on cab fares and also give them the privacy to enjoy each other's company more. Samaresh acts like he needs a place to write, since he is a 'poet' and Miss Stoneham the dear that she is easily agrees to let them use her apartment for writing.

Of course Samaresh does not write anything and Nandita and he are always present at her home when she gets back from school, keeping her house warm and her tea ready. They interact with her a lot and they go out for walks and many such outings while they are utilizing her apartment. One evening when Miss Stoneham comes home and does espy them kissing each other passionately. She is a bit shocked at first but smiles eventually. Soon they become a part of her daily life till one day Samaresh gets a job and he and Nandita are to get married. Once they get married, they have no real use for Miss Stoneham or her apartment, after they have got everything they want from her. While they are not entirely cruel, they fail to realize (or ignore) how much they were a part of her life in that time frame. It is the story of how Miss Stoneham comes to terms with the reality and the following disillusionment of how she will remain in the periphery of this social society with nobody to care for her at all.

Jennifer Kendal does an excellent job as Miss Stoneham, the English school teacher who loves Shakespeare. The movie really captures the loneliness which not only age but the changing world brings. Miss Stoneham is really British but she was born and has lived her entire life in India and where does one go when one has based their entire life in a place and then they have to up and go and become strangers in a strange land. The movie is a very emotional movie trying to capture a number of different aspects; loneliness, being expatriates in India and the disillusionment. Aparna Sen who also wrote the story does a great job at capturing the essence of loneliness in Miss Stoneham's life in depicting her daily life. She does do a dream sequence which appears to be her tribute to Fellini. The music in the movie is a medley of Christmas songs, 60s pop and western classical music. Overall the movie richly deserves all the accolades it gets.

Movie Review: Ijaazat

Ijaazat is a movie from 1986 made by Gulzar. The movie starts with a man reaching a station one evening in pouring rain, where he has to wait for his connecting train the following morning. In the waiting room is a lady who is also waiting for a morning train. They are a divorced couple, who have not seen each other for 5 years, when she had left him an empty house. The movie is told mainly as a flashback. The man is Mahinder (Naseeruddin Shah), a photographer and the woman is Sudha (Rekha), a school teacher.

Mahinder was engaged to marry Sudha for 5 years, the whole engagement arranged by his grandfather. However, a few years after his engagement he meets Maya (Anuradha Patel) in the city where he lives. They fall in love with each other and soon they are living together. When Mahinder goes to visit his grandfather (Shammi Kapoor), Sudha's mother (Sulbha Deshpande) expresses her concern about their remaining unmarried for so long and while his grandfather does ask him if he is in love with someone else, he does not mention Maya and his marriage to Sudha is set for the next week. Sudha is a school teacher in Panchgani and he goes to talk to her to explain about Maya and that he does not want to get married to her. Sudha's suggestion is for him to take Maya to his grandfather and explain the situation before his marriage date. When Mahinder goes back to the city, Maya has disappeared, as she does frequently. In one of those Indian customs of maintaining his Grandfather's honor he gets married to Sudha.

Maya's presence is felt in their marriage from the things of hers which habit the house to the frequent phone calls from her. Maya is portrayed to be very impulsive, poetic, moody and very emotional to the point of suffering from depression at Mahinder's marriage. On his birthday she tries to kill herself which leads him to start visiting her, without telling Sudha. When she confronts him about the visits he says he wants them to meet and she refuses saying Maya cannot come to her house. He calls Maya (on the phone) to come to their house that very evening, she overhears Sudha's 'disinvitation' and she runs away from her house. Sudha sees the invitation & the unopeness in her marriage about Mahinder's visits & herself as being between the two of them and she leaves him and goes away.

Cut to the present and the station to yet another flashback to discover what happened to Mahinder, Sudha & Maya after their seperation.

The acting done by the 3 main characters is simply real. No review I do can really describe the emotion of helplessness and poignancy which comes up throughout the movie. The style of mixing the past and present is done excellently and keeps one very engrossed to the lives of the three main characters. The songs used in moderation, having only 4 songs, one used for the opening credits are superlative. The music of RD Burman and the lyrics of Gulzar are simply superb. The music and the utilization of urdu words & couplets add a distinctive flavor to the movie.The only negative about the movie which runs throughout the whole movie is the dominant chauvnism, down to the title (or portrayal of it). It does not put women down and does portray Sudha to be very independent and might not seem entirely negative, but it is definitely a male centered movie (as was the society in which the movie is set). However compared to the mainstream releases in 86-87, mainly potboilers like Janbaaz, Mr. India, Aakhree Rasta, Karma, Nagina, this movie stands far and above everything else and does not even really deem comparision.

Movie Review: Maachis

Maachis is a movie about terrorism in Punjab after the riots and killing of innocent Sikhs following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, probably before Operation Black Thunder in 88 (so my guess is 86). It was made in 1996 by Gulzar, who is known to be a maker of movies with a social cause. The movie raises the issue of what circumstances create extremists, who see themselves as fighting injustice in the society, which comes from having a democracy where ones voice is not heard. Living in a free country and yet not having the basic rights of such a freedom. The term Maachis means matches, which are struck to make a fire of revolution.

The main part of this movie is in two parts, the first part is a flashback to an earlier time. We see the story of Pali aka Kripal Singh (Chandrachur Singh) and Jassi aka Jaswant Singh (Raj Zutshi) two childhood friends living in a village in Punjab. Veera (Tabu) is the sister of Jassi and is the fiance of Pali. The police comes to their house one day searching for a terrorist, Jimmy , who was involved in the attempted assassination of a MP(member of parliament) . While there are no terrorists in that house, they do have a dog named Jimmy. The police officers, Khurana and Vohra take in Jassi for questioning to the 'police station' for 1/2 hr, while he protests his innocence. He just disappears after that. Nobody in any of the local police stations know of him and he has possibly been detained in one of the main city Headquarters. He comes home one day battered and bruised from long periods of torture. Seeing this injustice to his friend and feeling frustrated and helpless, Pali disappears. He does not even tell his fiance anything. He travels aimlessly in search his cousin, who is involved with the terrorists possibly.

While he is traveling one day he sees Sanaatan (Om Puri) getting off a bus at the same stop as him without the camera which he had on the bus. He tells him that he forgot his camera, to which he just looks blankly and gets into an ambassador which comes there and speeds away. The bus he was traveling in explodes from the camera bomb. On yet another day he comes across Sanaatan in a road side dhabha. He approaches him to ask him if he can help locate his cousin and then gets sucked into the terrorist organization, which trains him and he sets his life as a terrorist by killing the inspector, Khurana who had detained his friend. He goes back to his village after that to tell his friend and say good bye to his fiance. They are obviously shocked seeing him after more than a year and by his act of terrorism. His fiance wants to run away with him and join his organization so that she can be with him but he manages to leave her behind and run away.

Cut to the present time, in himachal pradesh, where he is hiding after having killed the inspector in Punjab. His friend from his village has been detained yet again by the police and they extract the information from him that Pali is responsible for the killing of the inspector. In Himachal he and a bunch of people from his terrorist organization are on a mission to kill a minister using a missile. A missile launcher joins their group, who is somewhat unsurprisingly Veera. Pali finds out from Veera that Jassi tired of all the torture for 6 months killed himself in police custody and she had nothing more to live for hence she joined a terrorist organization which after training had sent her there. She had no idea he was there. One day Pali sees Vohra who was also involved in the first arrest of his friend as well as the second arrest and his ultimate death. He tries to kill him and is unsuccessful and is caught. The police come to their hideout (when the terrorists all are out) leading Sanataan to suspect the two of them and makes her a captive and implies how Pali will be killed before he goes to jail. Then it is just a pointless story of love, which leads Veera to eliminate the terrorists and go to the jail cell to see Pali to give him cyanide and they both die peacefully. In the end a newsreel indicates, almost as a needed happy ending that 27 Punjab police officers are sentenced to be prosecuted(whatever that means) for the death of 4 suspected terrorists .

There are a number of songs in the movie, all of which are beautifully picturized and it is worth watching the movie for the countryside and hills of India. Chandrachur Singh and Om Puri excel in their role. Some of the dialogues (penned by Gulzar) of Om Puri are really the main point of the whole movie. Tabu is sort of in an ancillary role, which she does well. Kulbushan Kharbandha also appears in the movie as the chief of the terrorists.

The story in itself fails in many a ways, however some of the points raised in the movie about the impact of the bloody partition of Punjab for the creation of the two-nation plan suited only the politicians involved and had a devastating impact on the people who were partitioned, the impact of the riots killing the Sikhs in the days following the killing of Indira Gandhi with none of the elected goverment officials or the police doing anything to prevent it, the denial of basic rights and a flagrant abuse of human rights of innocent people taken in for 'questioning' raises question about the kind of democracy and secularity which exists in India.

Movie Review: The White Balloon

This is an Iranian movie from 1995, based on a story by Abbas Kiarostami, who is supposed to be the grand old daddy of Iranian cinema. I have not had a chance to see anything else by him. The story is really simple. It is the eve of the New Year. A 7 year old girl falls in love with a goldfish being sold in the shop for 100 toman, which is 1/5th of the money her mother has reserved for the New Year gifts. She pesters and pesters and whines & whines but her mother would not hear of it, spending 100 toman on a goldfish, while they have some in the tank in their own courtyard!!!! Of course they are skinny ones not like the plump and beautiful ones in the shop which have 4 fins and they dance!!

Enter her elder brother who must be around 10 and in return for getting a nice Balloon from her he manages to convince their mother to let her buy it. Now the only note her mother has is a 500 Toman note and the little girl takes that from her brother and runs out to the shop, over her mother's warning to be careful with the money. Then it is the story of her in the streets of Tehran running into interesting characters and reaching the shop to discover her money is lost. How she finds it and the people who she runs into are what make the story.

The kids are great in the movie and it is really only them in the movie. I was reminded of another Iranian (children's) movie by Majid Majidi, Children of Heaven. I like these movies which are set in Tehran and have the hustle bustle of the marketplace in the background which the adults are immersed in while the children worry about the more important things in life.:)

Movie Review: Such a Long Journey

This movie was made in 1998 by Sturla Gunnarsson based on the novel by Rohinton Mistry and a script by Sooni Taraporevala. Sooni does a good job at modifying the novel to a script which helps capture the essence of the Novel without losing too much of the realism that is Rohinton Mistry. This is one of my least liked works by Rohinton Mistry, while it was indeed a very well written and oddly captivating book.

The movie is set in the 1971 just prior to the 3rd India-Pakistan war and the creation of Bangladesh. Rohinton Mistry , who left Bombay (and India) in 1975 just around the 'Internal Emergency' is very openly critical of Indira Gandhi for her so called democratic 'rule'. Her secret police RAW and the Emergency and the Sterilization campaigns of Sanjay Gandhi form important variables in his stories. In this movie it is RAW which is featured to change the life of a Parsi Family living in a Parsi Colony. Roshan Seth plays Gustad Noble, a bank employee in the Central Bank of India. His wife is Dilnavaz played by Soni Razdan. They have a son who manages to get a seat in IIT, which is a very proud moment in the father's life. Also in the backdrop is Major Jimmy Bilimoria a friend of the family who was there all the time including in the time of need for Gustad and one fine day just disappears without a word. Gustad leads a usual Parsi family life and also the life of a father of three children, one being an obstinate and disrespectful adolescent son. Suddenly there is a letter from Jimmy Bilimoria asking the help of Gustad, which leads him into a suspenseful web of money, RAW, the life in Kamathipura. His son with whom he fights all the time leaves home due to the over the top expectations of the father, the daughter falls ill with malaria, the mother starts doing a few witchly rituals for the good of the children, a beautiful doll which the daughter won disappears, a mentally handicapped person who lives in the building is involved in everything, a building wall is to be broken down for road widening. None of the elements come through to culmination or culminate in cliched ways. This was my main gripe with the book as well. It appears more jarring in the movie. Then in the end there is a brief reunion of the two friends. The story can either be looked at as a glance at the Parsi life in Bombay or of a suspense (albeit weak) story involving governmental corruption and friendship and the unfortunate position of the hardworking middle class bank employee friend caught in this. There are a large number of interlinked stories involving all the characters , this is glanced at in the movie. Either way the movie is looked at, it fails in terms of a comprehensive story.

The book is definitely far better in terms of understanding Gustad Noble's character and the way it sucks you in. However the movie is Brilliant in the way it captures Bombay and the art of the pavement artist who is one of the characters in the movie. This is played by Ranjit Chowdhry who is an excellent actor. Some of the pieces of wall/pavement art portrayed in the movie are stupendous. Definitely one of those movies to watch when one might be feeling Bombaysick. Om Puri also plays a role in the movie as Ghulam Mohammed, a friend of Jimmy. Roshan Seth acts excellently in his role as Gustad, Soni Razdan is always charming to watch.

Movie Review: Dhoop

Dhoop was one of those alternative movies made in 2003. It is a social movie dealing with the corruption seemingly prevelant in every government office. At times the amount of corruption shown seems a bit difficult to digest, if it were not based on a true story. It is the story of a Captain in the Indian Army who is killed in the Kargil War. The impact of the death on his fiance and his parents form the first part of the movie. The dad is a professor of international trade and economics played by Om Puri and the mom is a librarian played by Revathy. The slain son is Sanjay Suri and the fiance is Gul Panag. The second part of the movie starts when the government want to honor the soldier for his life by allocating a Petrol Pump. (The government has strange ways of Honoring Soldiers). While the parents do not have the financial need for a Petrol Pump, they want to open it to keep their son (and all the 46 thousand odd soldiers who have died in the various wars fought by India) alive and give them a reason for existence. Then starts the innumerous permits required from the allocation of the land to achieving a No Objection Certification from the Police to getting an electricty line in place. The whole bunch of the governmental officers are completely corrupt and have no respect for the father who has just lost his young son and demand Lakhs of rupees (each ) for the process. The movie then is just the struggle of the old man(and his wife and his son's fiance) in managing to setup the Petrol Pump without giving in to the system and fighting it. While the system does try to threaten him to cough up the money or have him and his family face the consequences of fighting such a strong opponent, who only fights dirty. He does triumph in the end with a little help from the PMO. It is the Saaransh of the current times and the bribes demanded have increased multiple fold. While it is slightly grating that based on a true story nobody in any position of power (except the PM- Atal Bihari Vajpayee) encountered by the dad is a good person and everybody is completely corrupt. I would not like to believe that that in fact is the reality in India.

Om Puri excels in his role as the father. He is just an excellent actor who has an amazing diction and command over the language. Revathy is well Revathy, I guess I have been jaded watching all those Tamil movies in which she is the mom (and even that non-Tamil Indian take on You Got Mail; Mitr My Friend). She does the crying and upset mom to the pat including the sadness which the Fathers will not feel when they find out their son did not eat dinner before he went to the battlefield. Sanjay Suri in the few minutes he is their does a great job, he is always refreshing to watch after the Shahrukhs of the current times. Gul Panag, Miss India in 99 (I think), plays a small role as the fiance of Sanjay Suri. She was again very refreshing to watch, anyday prefer watching heracting over the so-Phat Kareenas. She does appear in great Salwars (almost tailored to perfection to keep up with the current trends) and at times (maybe cause of her dimples) looks a lot like Preity Zinta.

Overall the movie is slow and has a good mixture of songs sung by Hariharan, Jagjit Singh and Shreya Ghoshal. The music is pretty good and complements the emotions of the film. I prefered the voice of Hariharan & Shreya Ghoshal to that of Jagjit Singh. He does have a great Ghazal but in one of the other songs seems slightly irritating. I like Jagjit Singh a lot, many of his songs are good but not all his songs are great and likewise there is one example of each in this one.

Movie Review: Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon

Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon (2003) was a delightful movie to watch. It is directed by Chandan Arora, who is the editor for many of the movies from the Ram Gopal Verma banner (as is this one). The movie is a very realistic movie, which has a slightly different take on the struggles of rural people in Bombay. Antara Mali is Chutki who is the biggest fan of Madhuri Dixit in her village and learns to dance like her (kinda like Prabhu Deva and Michael Jackson). Everbody in her village, except her parents, act like she is like the real thing. Especially her childhood friend Raja, Rajpal Yadav, who is madly in love with her. She has the unheard dream of going to Bombay and becoming an actress like her idol. The only way she can manage to do this is a marriage to Raja (fake to her). Then it is the struggle like the many people who come to Bombay and think the film industry will be waiting at the platform for them, their hopes (live & dead) of becoming a filmstar and in one swoop changing their entire existences. It manages to maintain an upbeat feel inspite of everything and she does get her break in the movies. It is entertaining to watch her big break movie and what she does after that. Nothing as filmy & cliched as success getting to ones head.

Antara Mali is pretty good in her role, does not get too annoying (my expectations are very low). Rajpal Yadav does a great role as this not so bright guy from the village, and he is plainly suited for the role of Raja the dude who loves the most pretty girl in the village and there is no way she can manage to fall in love with him (unless of course they move to Bombay and he is the only one who believes in her). They look very believeable in their naiveness as the village bums among the so called smart and busy city folk. Between the two of them Rajpal Yadav is more naturally suited for the role, but compared to the crap passed out for acting they do a really great job.
Antara Mali looks very well worked out ( a bit too well worked out), the only time I see abs like that are in the gym (if I manage to get there). The movie uses songs well for the most part. Does not have too many of them., only two major songs, apart from a medley of old Madhuri songs. The movie interestingly also has Raman Trikha as the chikna dude, who was in this annoying serial Tara (I think) on ZeeTV in the early 90s.

Movie Review: Masoom

Masoom was an old Hindi movie which I rewatched in my current phase of watching alternative Bollywood cinema (or as my brother puts it Ronu-Dhonu cinema). Masoom was made by Shekar Kapur in 1982 as a serious movie (and hence part of the alternative movie genre), I remember the song Lakdi Ki Kathi which used to be on TV all the time, so cannot be so much of a non-commercial movie. It has the usual required 5 songs (all of which are really nice) of Bollywood cinema.

The story is an old story(new to Bollywood, maybe), based on a script by Gulzar. Naseeruddin Shah is DK Malhotra, a successful architect, married to Shabana Azmi, Indu. They have two kids, the older of them is Urmila Matondkar, Pinki and the younger one is an annoying little cute brat, Minni. They lead a very happy life, when one fine day DK gets a letter notifying him he has a son in Nainital whose mother died and he is responsible for him now. Then it is the story of how he deals with the consequence of a one night stand from 8 years back blowing up his happy married life. The boy is Rahul, Jugal Hansraj, who has to come and live them and get snubbed by a very distraught Indu who does not know what to do, when her whole foundation of love in her marriage is shattered. Of course she has to take it out on the kid who reminds her of her husband's infidelity. It is a movie of how they all deal with Rahul and finally of course accept him.

The acting of course is excellent and it is a nice movie to watch. Urmila Matondkar is very obviously Urmila. Jugal Hansraj is a cute version of the annoying pain he is now. Maybe the songs are actually not all that good but I have heard it so many zillions of times that I have no choice but to like it. But all in all, indeed a refreshing movie to watch.