Film Impressions

ESSAY: Actors of the Year

EVERYDAY HEROES

As it was for this year’s women where we had a clear front-runner in the performing sweepstakes, Ranbir Kapoor in Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar steals a march on this year’s field, holding together a film that otherwise seems to be coming apart at its seams. In the opening montage, he is the recalcitrant rock star, a rebel who fights through a barricade to take the stage in a giant amphitheater filled with thousands of his fans, and as the camera swoops unto his almost upholstered frame, we segue into flashback mode, with Kapoor now in college tweeds and a marked air of deference, busking with his guitar at a road crossing. Over the course of its running time, the film takes us through his character’s progression, and although the styling of his ‘look’ is an important part of the transformation of a gauche kid with cropped hair to a straggly haired rock icon, Kapoor inhabits each change like a second skin.

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ESSAY: Actresses of the Year

THE YEAR OF THE BAD GIRL

Earlier this year, our mid-year picks brought out the indie soul of Bollywood, before a litany of blockbusters took over the box-office in quick succession. Female actors often have precious little to do in many of these ‘100-crore’ bonanzas. However, this year has certainly reaped a rich harvest of great turns by women, several of which have been in films that have done reasonably well commercially. A common theme that has emerged is how the ‘bad girl’ seems to have been catapulted centrestage, indicating that audiences are perhaps increasingly able to view women outside the mould of tailor-made propriety.

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LIST: Asha Bhosle's Rarest Gems

Asha Bhosle has just entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the most single studio recordings. In a tribute to the versatile songstress, our guest contributor Rajiv Lele list 10 of her lesser-known gems. Each one an exquisite rendition by an artist of unmatched vocal prowess.

1) Naina hain pyase mere | Aavishkar (1973) | Kanu Roy | Kapil Kumar

An absolute stunner. The way Asha glides effortlessly through the intricacies of this song—coiling, twisting and uncoiling like smoke rings from a scented stick—has to be experienced. It just cannot be expressed in words. 

Naina Hain Pyase Mere | Aavishkar

SPOTLIGHT: What to look out for at the MAMI Fest

As another edition of Mumbai’s premiere film festival gets underway on Oct 13th, here’s our selection of some of the films that may tickle your senses over the coming week, in all the right ways.

MELANCHOLIA (Denmark / 2011 / Col. / 130’) 

It’s a shame that the cinematic achievement that is Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia has been all but obscured by his pro-Nazi comments uttered in jest at a Cannes press conference. The director was declared persona non grata by the festival directors, while actress Kirsten Dunst’s appalled countenance as she reacts to Von Trier’s public unraveling, became one of the defining images from the festival. Dunst’s searing performance as one of two sisters (the other is played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) caught up in a far-fetched but unnervingly immediate pre-apocalyptic scenario (a planet on a collision course with Earth) is a beguiling tour-de-force, light years removed from the franchise movies she usually traipses around in, and won her the Best Actress award at the festival.

A devastating turn from Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia

SPOTLIGHT: India at the Toronto Film Fest

At any film festival, it is always interesting to find out what the films that deal with Indian themes, whether diasporic or local, have to say about us as a culture. Usually the mainstream cinema we are accustomed to, supplants our cultural identity with a manufactured one that is woefully one-dimensional (all that spice-loving singing and dancing). Luckily, that kind of cinema is under-represented at most prestigious international festivals. That's when a different kind of picture emerges—something more rich and diverse—that for a second the miscellany almost fleetingly represents a kind of 'national' cinema that a country of such immense contradictions surely deserves. Here are ten films that form the 'unofficial Indian selection' at the Toronto International Film Festival.

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LIST: What 'They' Say About Indian Cinema

A round-up of what eight celebrated international directors have to say about Indian cinema. Some of these opinions have been stated during interactions with Indian journalists, who are ever eager to get the low-down on anything and everything desi, including our cinema. That's the stock question that provides good copy (or at least a headline of some import) to the local press, but which visiting filmmakers must secretly dread, given the general quality of our celluloid output. Of course, there is no reason to believe that the directors featured here are being less than candid.

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ESSAY: Mid Year Best of 2011

THE INDIE SOUL OF BOLLYWOOD

Before the onslaught of out-sized holiday blockbusters, it's always quieter in the first half of the year. The first six months of 2011 has been privy to films that aren't usually the kind of fare that our cinema is associated with (and we’ll be back to overblown gaudiness soon enough). After last year's middling mid-year harvest, this year has been a revelation, with some truly worthy efforts, very often by first-time film-makers, who represent a new brat pack of upstarts and rule-changers. Here's a look at the very best of the lot.

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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

Here's a look at how Indian cinema (both in India and the diaspora worldwide) has represented queer issues in India over the ages. Vikram Phukan 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.

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?