Film Impressions

LIST: Those Magnificent Women in the Rain

BARSAAT MEIN

The rains bring out the best in Hindi film lyricists, composers and even choreographers.  And some of the most popular actresses have done memorable dances in the rain. Here's a list of a dozen favourites: 

LIST: Top 10 Romantic Songs

It is virtually impossible to pick out just 10 songs from the entire history of Hindi cinema and put them together in a list. So, to begin with, this is a personal selection, albeit based on certain broad parameters. In the context of Hindi cinema, songs don't just need to be good melodies, but must also augment the narrative and express feelings and thoughts that perhaps cannot be conveyed through dialogue. Hence, the effectiveness of a song and its ultimate value to the film its in, depends not just on the lyric, melody and rendition, but also the situation itself, the performance of the actors involved and the director's vision in terms of picturisation and placement of the song in such a manner that it helps enhance the story and take it forward. Many classic compositions of Hindi cinema, when seen on screen, look like mere 'embellishments' if weighed against these parameters.

I have listed the songs in chronological order to avoid giving them numbers. And it would be futile to write descriptions when you can watch them instead!

Jalte Hain Jiske Liye (SUJATA, Bimal Roy, 1959) / Talat Mahmood / Majrooh Sultanpuri / S D Burman / Sunil Dutt & Nutan

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)

Here's a look 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 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. Wearing its agenda on its sleeve, the film plays out as a melodrama rather than merely a public awareness infomercial about AIDS and safe sex.

LISTS: Best Villain Names

These are names only a momma can love...

Tatya Bichchoo

Ikka Singh

Azghar Jurhad

Chuniya Mama

Durjan Singh

Honda Dada

General Dong

MUSIC: Summer Songs

FEELING HOT HOT HOT

Summer in India is hardly a season to celebrate; and certainly not with song and dance, when it’s too hot even to move. So nobody wrote romantic songs to summer, they waited for the rains to gush about the mausam. Still there are some that evoke images of heat and dust, and here’s a selection of garmi songs.

Jaise suraj ki garmi se jalte hue tan ko mil jaaye tarwar ka chhaya

 This Jaidev compostion sung by Sharma Bandhu, from the 1974 film Parinay could be the prayer of summer.

LIST: 25 Films to Remember

Cinema is my life. Over the years, many films have left a permanent impression, and in some ways, shaped my worldview. I decided to put together a list of the 25 great films I’ve seen. The chronology is largely irrelevant because each one of these films is special in its own way, and I’m certain there are many more that aren’t on the list, simply because of there’s a finite limit to it. But yes, it must be said, this isn’t about the best films ever made, but about the films that have made me.

1. Hiroshima Mon Amour: This Alain Resnais classic is very special. It shook me up the first time I watched it and unravelled itself gradually with subsequent viewings. Its visual style is extraordinary, and everything from the performances to the pacing and music blends beautifully with the multi-layered theme of love, loss, memory and forgetting, all woven around the devastating tragedy of Hiroshima.

LIST: Best Films Of The Decade

At the outset I admit I haven’t watched all the films released in this decade. But since I don’t think I’ve missed any of the significant ones, will dare to continue. This is not a chronological list -– either in terms of release dates or of ranking. It certainly isn’t based on box-office performance or on any other generalised parameters. These are just the handful of films made between 2000 and 2010 that I have enjoyed watching for various reasons. I may even have missed a few important ones. But the logic is, if they didn’t pop up at the top of the head, they may not have had a lasting impact.

1. Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2005): Three friends graduate from college in the early ‘70s. The wealthiest, Siddharth, is guided by his idealism to join the Naxalite movement, Geeta marries an upwardly mobile civil servant while carrying on her old affair with Siddharth, and Vikram smooth-talks and bribes his way to riches, determined to leave behind the disadvantages of his lower-middle class, small-town upbringing and the principles of his Gandhian father. Siddharth’s romanticism is crushed by the heavy blows of the state machinery; Vikram’s ill-gotten wealth can’t save him from being reduced to a vegetable. It’s Geeta who stays true to herself and refuses to follow Siddharth to London, choosing to live in a village and nurse Vikram instead. Sudhir Mishra’s elegy on a lost generation is likely to remain close to my heart for a long time to come.