We often describe our films as
‘melodramatic’, literally meaning a combination of melody and drama––a
heightened representation of emotional states, achieving climax and offering
collective catharsis to an audience. Melodrama synthesises social criticism
with mythical archetypes thereby enabling the viewers (diverse sections of
them, as another essential ingredient of this genre is the near absence of
psychological depth) to see the follies of men and institutions combined with
the triumph of virtue and punishment of vice. The audience’s involvement with
the characters’ journey is critical to the success of the genre.
If you’re an avid watcher of
Bengali films (as yours truly) Rajesh Sharma would be a familiar face.
Alternately, you may remember him as Silk’s ‘mentor’ in The Dirty Pictureor the cynical Delhi cop in No One Killed Jessica. But Sharma, who slips seamlessly into just
about every kind of character, finally gets a starring role in debutant Sameer
Sharma’s Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana––a
film quite like authentic slow-cooked gravy which may not be very attractive to
look at, but leaves a delicious aftertaste nevertheless.
Rajesh Sharma (in background), Vinod Nagpal and Kunal Kapoor
Cinema, by its very nature, is
voyeuristic. We sit in the darkness and delve into peoples’ lives––in turn
emerging from the imagination of others––and sometimes make an immediate
connection with them like no other art form can achieve on a similar scale. But
what happens when, instead of mining for inspiration in the outside world or
within their fertile minds, filmmakers and/or actors turn the camera around and examine their own lives with, what may be described as, subjective
detachment?
Two fascinating documentaries
screened at the recently concluded Mumbai International Film Festival did just
this with equally satisfying results. The first, Stories We Tell, is a film by Canadian actress/filmmaker Sarah
Polley who discovered a few years ago that her father, Michael Polley, is in
fact not her biological parent and that she was born out of wedlock when her
actress mother Diane Polley had a relationship with another man while she was
in Toronto for a play in the late ‘70s.
World events revolve around five things -- M.O.N.E.Y." quips Gekkoesque billionaire fund manager Robert Miller (Richard Gere) to CNN on the eve of his 60th birthday. Evidently, he really believes this adage. For, after a dramatic turn of events in his personal and professional life, when even Miller with all his wealth, clout and acumen finds himself pushed to the wall, a young African-American who has staked his life for him asks, "Do you think money is gonna fix this?", he readily retorts, "What else is there?"
Underneath the banter and good cheer of John Madden's melodrama, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel based on a novel by Deborah Moggach, are two very bitter truths -- the universal wretchedness of old age and inevitable death, and the end of European dominance over the world which has lasted well over four centuries. Suddenly, geriatrics from the Queen's land are struggling to survive in a recession-hit economy on their meagre savings (not particularly wanted as they feel in any case) and turn to third-world India to spend their retirement years in a run-down (but perhaps once exotic) hotel in Jaipur. The empire lays down its arms with humility (sometimes grudgingly), embracing the simplicity and the squalour of its erstwhile subjects and accepting the inevitability of its decline.
The director of music videos, Charlie’s Angels and Terminator Salvation, keeps his name short, trendy and piques curiosity. If only his film, This Means War, also had the same quality.
The promos of the film pretty much reveal what there is to the film—which is not much—and obviously, a film so formulaic can’t generate any curiosity. At best, it is the kind of film that bored people can endure over the weekend, because there is nothing better to do, and they were just looking for some mild entertainment, not high art anyway. Fair enough… as long as the presence of the attractive star cast doesn’t give anybody ideas.
Two friends warring over the same woman is acceptable. Their juvenile games of one-upmanship too can be digested if within reasonable limits. But misusing the CIA machinery to spy on her and blantantly invading her privacy in the name of love? Nah. And that's not the end of it. The girl, when she finds out what these two over-grown boys between whom she is unable to choose have been up to, her indignation doesn't last beyond a few minutes. A stupid car-chase across Los Angeles helps wipe off all memory of her humiliation and manipulation and she promptly proceeds to marry one of them.
Johnathan Safran Foer’s book about an autistic child trying to cope with the death of his father on 9/11 was original, imaginative and moving. Stephen Daldry’s film tips into melodrama often and seems oversimplified—which is often the case with book-to-film adaptations. Still, stars of the calibre of Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock threw their weight behind it, perhaps gauging correctly, that America still needs to get over that history-making day.
Meryl Streep’s Oscar-winning performance as Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady takes away from the fact that it is a wishy-washy portrait of a powerful—if unpopular—leader, the first woman prime minister in the Western world, and one whose policies had far-reaching consequences for Britain.
In India, biopics of dead political leaders have either been blocked or attacked when released; in this case Thatcher is still alive, and worthy of a much stronger, more politically aware film. It is also completely unfair—more so when coming from a female director—that a once powerful woman is seen as a helpless, dotty old woman who talks to her dead husband. It is like saying—look, women who try to compete with men in the political arena end up like this.
The Iron Lady, with Oscar winner Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher
To an Indian viewer, unfamiliar and perhaps indifferent to the world of baseball, Moneyball is worth a look because it stars Brad Pitt. The film seems to have made it to the Oscar shortlist too, because like cricket for Indians, baseball is almost religion for Americans. And this craze for the game makes this classic underdog-coming-out-winner film watchable, even though the plot is as dry as numbers.
