Film Impressions

REVIEW: Apartment

MUMBAI PSYCHO

At a press screening of the film, Apartment, the director Jag Mundhra addressed  an audience that already knew that his new film is a copy of Hollywood film Single White Female; he said that this was not in the league of films that he known for, like Bawandar and Provoked (actually he is not known for his social commitment, if that’s what he meant), but it was all his own work, and that he stood by it.
 
Another director would not have the nerve to present such a film; Mundhra’s thick skin probably comes from a series of duds that he has made. He does sometimes pick up interesting subjects, but not a single memorable film among them.

LIST: 100 Queer Films of India (Part 4)

CONTINUED FROM PART 3

Saawariya (2007) Hindi, dir. by Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor

In this homage to one of Indian film’s greatest showmen, Bhansali trains Raj Kapoor’s voyeuristic gaze away from women cavorting in waterfalls, and on to his grandson, in a highly sexualised towel-dance on a window sill that’s lit to highlight the lithe young actor’s erogenous zones, although it would appear only American audiences have been allowed the extended shot of his derrière. In one fell sweep, the director evokes Simi Garewal in Mera Naam Joker, Rishi Kapoor in Bobby (the original Bollywood butt-shot) and maybe even Dimple’s wardrobe malfunction from Saagar, who knows, who cares?

LIST: 100 Queer Films of India (Part 3)

CONTINUED FROM PART 2

Mera Naam Joker (1970) Hindi, dir. by Raj Kapoor with Raj Kapoor, Padmini

Features a third act in which we are introduced to petty thug Minoo Master (Padmini) who passes as a man, but is exposed as a woman (quite literally) after an ill-judged stunt performance involving knives. Later, Raj Kapoor (as Raju the Joker) himself turns in a gender-bending act as a flamboyantly effeminate qawwal, a perverse allusion to being cuckolded when Minoo falls for a dashing film star (Rajendra Kumar). Ultimately the Joker’s dysfunction in his relationship with women, and his uneasiness about his sexual trysts, could be a symptom of his repressed cravings. Indeed, the young Joker’s (Rishi Kapoor) burgeoning sexuality is fraught with guilt and trepidation, rather than the exuberance of erotic discovery, as if he were being dragged to the slaughter, forced to conform to standards of behaviour not in keeping with his own possibly queer disposition.

LIST: 100 Queer Films of India (Part 2)

CONTINUED FROM PART 1

Fire (1996) English, dir. by Deepa Mehta with Nandita Das, Shabana Azmi

Decried by gay activists as a film depicting ‘situational’ lesbians, Fire is rather less simplistic in its treatment of two women trapped in loveless marriages who ‘discover’ one another. The illicit affair is fraught with the underpinings of guilt and self-loathing, but there is mirth and exuberance, as in the scene where Sita (Das) cross-dresses and lip-synchs to the Hemant Kumar number Aaja Zara while Radha (Azmi) plays the demure ingénue, and also compassion when Radha breaks her sister-in-law’s Karwa Chauth fast, and looks upon her, newly empowered. These are women conditioned to traditional notions of home and hearth, who can now feel the shackles of repression slip away through the forbidden pleasure of their love for each other.

LIST: 100 Queer Films of India (Part 1)

With Kashish, the first international queer film festival of its kind, currently underway in Mumbai (see MQFF201) here's a good time to look back at how Indian cinema (both in India and the diaspora worldwide) has represented the queer people of India over the ages. I had originally compiled this Alternative Guide to Cinema as part of the April 2009 issue of Bombay Dost magazine, India's first and only registered LGBT publication, issues of which can be purchased online.

68 Pages (2007) Hindi, dir. by Sridhar Rangayan with Mouli Ganguly, Joy Sengupta, Jayati Bhatia

68 pages of an AIDS counselor’s diary draw out the hidden stories of India’s most repressed, through compelling narratives featuring as its dramatis personae — sex workers, bar dancers and gay men, in life-size avatars, who persist with their lives doggedly despite the odds being stacked against them in a society that’s far from egalitarian. While wearing its agenda on its sleeve, the film plays out as an evocative melodrama rather than merely a public awareness infomercial about AIDS and safe sex.

REVIEW: Paathshaala

LET'S GIVE THEM DETENTION, SHAHID FANS WALKED OUT!

Salman Khan fans will forgive his at once short, at once long hair. Although Shahid Kapoor tries the same stunt in Pathshala, fans found him wanting. He spread his hands a-la Shah Rukh Khan singing Mitwaa! in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and fans walked out on him.

REVIEW: Paathshaala

BAD EDUCATION

Paathshaala sets out to deliver a laundry-list of ills that plague our education system. But what it best serves is the purpose of highlighting everything that is fundamentally wrong with Hindi cinema. The most obvious malaise, of course, is the lack of a cogent script. In film after film we see insipid, incoherent and utterly illogical narratives, sometimes camouflaged by stars, locations, music and clever packaging, but incontinent nonetheless. Particularly if a film has some social, political, cultural or psychological issue at hand, the treatment is necessarily heavy-handed, the characterisation always lacking in depth and the discourse decidedly didactic. It is, I believe, done with the intention of reaching out to a wider audience base, which, our filmmakers have already presumed, is incapable of digesting complexity of any kind. We make some of the worst films in the world, but our so-called message-driven films are often worse than the brainless entertainers (offensive and rabidly sexist as they are!).

REVIEW: Phoonk 2

FRIGHTFULLY UNFUNNY: CROW, CHUCKY, CHAKU, CHUDAIL!

'Bring on the ECG machines!' the marketing team screamed. Tomorrow the ads will claim stars and swooshes of approval from critics known and unknown. They'll even have success parties. And they will conveniently forget that the audience is not equus asinus.

The audience is not. I love the blood and gore and general dementedness of Korean and Japanese movies. I clutch my stomach each time there is a re-run of Alien. I have seen Paranormal Activity, loved The Hills Have Eyes and The Ring. The shining, Wait Until Dark, Se7en are as scary as the Halloween movies. And am still creeped out by seagulls because of The Birds and terrified of ravens because of the Omen movies.

REVIEW: Paathshaala

TO SIR WITH BOREDOM

The country’s education system has become cinema’s new whipping boy—whether it is Taare Zameen Par castigating teachers for not recognizing dyslexia, 3 Idiots asking for a compassionate system, Shikshanachya Aai Cha Gho fulminating against everything.

Milind Ukey’s Paathshaala criticizes the commercialization of a “noble profession,” but does it in such a fake, over-the-top manner, that the film can’t be taken seriously.  However, all of them have another thing in common—teachers are portrayed as total morons – all but the lead actors, that is. If a film that purports to focus on the ills of the education system has no respect for teachers, the whole exercise is futile.

REVIEW: Phoonk 2

BLOW COLD

Ram Gopal Varma’s factory regularly churns out a few of these low budget horror movies in between other kinds of films—maybe to keep the staff busy.  There could be no other explanation for a Phoonk 2—there’s no creative challenge left in the horror genre the way these factory-assembled quickies approach it.