I'm not Burton, and this isn't horror I write about. A musical. A screenplay, short one that's a bit lyrical, more or less. Hope you enjoy the first few moments of it :)
HERE GOES…
(Straight road – highway. Fast moving wheels, two, three, four, six, eight, more. Youth sitting inside one such speeding, white, small car, tourist vehicle. Sits right at the centre of the back-seat, pensive. Music playing low in the background – radio. Racy music, yet low in sound, quiet. Driver minding just his job. Windows shut, air conditioners on:
Plain silence…)
I’ve never been able
to explain, the pain
of falling in love…
Scintillating a sensation,
Inexplicable:
Beyond human ration…
You do try
to figure out why
you feel that tortuous
jab about your gut;
But, sometimes
you ask your,
insubstantial core,
as I ask mine now…
“Could this be love…?”
(Darkness – Total black, as compared to the previous Black and White combination. Closure of eyes of the protagonist to indicate the shift of scene, a touch of memories passing right before his eyes – events of the day, for he stood at the end of it. Could even be a couple of days; or a week… But still, it’s a flashback.)
My entry for our SAARANG 2009 online creative writing event, linking LUST, CAUTION and BUTTERFLIES.. Hope I made sense, and hope I did justice.. And I most certainly hope this would win me something :)
STARRING: DEV PATEL, FREIDA PINTO, ANIL KAPOOR, IRRFAN KHAN
RATING:---MIXED---
I start with my rating, when I review Danny Boyle’s (Sunshine) ‘spectacle’ of today that has ‘swept away’ the Golden Globes this year, with Best Director, Best Film, Best Screenwriter and as a package that was too very much ‘expected’ to be called a surprise, Best Original score, by musician of ‘Indian-origin’ A.R.Rahman. And while you relish the delight that an Indian has finally made it big in the international scenario, I urge you to take a second look at the words within single quotations – These have mighty meaning behind them all…
The reason why ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was ‘critically-acclaimed’ overseas was because of the fact that it was one of those ‘rare films’ like ‘Salaam Bombay’ (Another ‘critically acclaimed’ fare from the director who’s so out of place that she can hardly be called ‘Indian’ – Mira Nair) that showed the outsider, a ‘clear view’ of the recent craze, i.e. India. ‘It shows India as it is, the India involving “Teresa”, slums, orphanages, like “Salaam Bombay” and not that of vintage pieces like Attenborough’s “Gandhi” or David Lean’s “A Passage to India”’, says Roger Ebert, whose words, as James Lipton (of Inside the Actor’s Studio) puts it ‘is seldom wrong’.
Well, Mr. Lipton: I’m sorry to say we have a contradiction here…
Let’s see… By the way, I might be being too selfish; too unmindful of India’s ‘double-existence’ – One in rags and the other rolling in the riches, with what could be called a ‘middle-class barrier’. Maybe I have not seen a slum close-by; maybe I have not dwelled in one for more than half a day (That I have done) and maybe that, that was the reason I couldn’t ‘connect’ to ‘Slumdog Millionaire’… But I ask also this: How long are we going to be kidding ourselves that an outsider (like Boyle or Mira Nair or even the masterful Richard Attenborough) can do ample justice to the Indian lives we lead? Or can they ever do any justice at all?!
Hey Mr. Ebert. You could possibly be right in ‘everything’ except at this – But this isn’t A BIT of the India that you signed the Nuclear Deal with. This isn’t the India that suffered during the 26/11 terror strikes. Bollywood, I assure you, has got nothing to do with the true India that we hoard amidst us (and in ‘us’ I do not include ‘you’ of course!). Neither does any ‘film-maker’ who has ever surfaced in the recent years (I’m not sufficiently peacock-y to tell ‘even in the years to come’). I’m afraid (or proud to say) that the true India, with its religion, castes, monotony, the poor, the filthy rich, the cricket-craze, (err… I’m sorry that doesn’t come into India too) the middle class, the working class, schools, our ‘education system’ is still a heritage that ‘we’, the people who ‘live’ lives and not ‘artificially design’ them, IN INDIA, hold close to our hearts. And that’s never been let out to ANYONE, let alone a bunch of lame (should I use the word?) who sit in comfy, cosy cinema halls trying to figure out how they could possibly make their bucks over the next piece of (whatever) that’s going to feature in their ‘faithful’ newspapers…
Back to our topic then: Excluding the fact that ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is an insight into the real India, (which it isn’t, of course!) what more could a movie-goer (not critic!) like in this movie? Dev Patel as Jamal Malik, yes: There’s nothing extraordinary for him to do, except deliver his dialogues well, and maybe look at Latika (Freida Pinto) with expressive eyes and say, “I’d do anything for you” (Something of that sort, anyway!). And Freida Pinto too isn’t a stunner. Neither was Irrfan Khan, nor Saurabh Shukla. Not even Anil Kapoor. But on the other hand, standing out from every adult cast in this movie, exceptionally brilliant were the child artistes, raising smiles every little time they pop in. Particularly, the boys who played Salim Malik’s (Madhur Mittal, with a subtle performance, perhaps a tad peaky) childhood were spectacular, with the character’s fire-in-eyes quite obviously seen.
Visuals were truly spectacular, with even the slums of India shown in better light than the dismal sight they always are in any Indian movie that had claimed realism in the past. The slight tint of yellow to the overall camerawork seems to add flavour, as does the use of fast-forwarded sequences like during the riots (Christopher Doyle’s ploy in Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express, 1994). The music by A.R.Rahman surely needs mention, with soundtracks pepping up the pace of the movie, providing the requisite dose of raciness, though it isn’t as inspiring during the moments of romance and that of deep sentimentality (anyway those were really few, this never was a deep movie). But all that it could deserve is a job well done. Nothing more! Come on, you can’t be shoving Golden Globes up the already puffed up fellow for every thing he coughs out! After all, this is an award that has been won by incredible musicals such as ‘Shakespeare in Love’, ‘The Lion King’, dating back to ‘The Sound of Music’ days. Slumdog Millionaire in that list? How does that sound…?
The screenplay was interesting, with every stage of the movie proving to be an answer to questions asked in a game show hosted by Prem Kumar, (Anil Kapoor) with the backbone being the tale of the ‘Three Musketeers’, Salim, Jamal and Latika, through every single struggle, every nuance of life they had to encounter.
And before I complete this mixed (or mostly negative) review of mine, I wish to establish something that both Simon Beaufoy (‘Best Screenplay’ indeed!) and Danny Boyle himself seem to have overlooked: Everyone in the movie speaks two languages: English and Hindi. In unary cases, we could assume that the most convenient language was chosen as medium of conversation (like we accepted, to the extent of hailing movies like ‘15, Park Avenue’). But when two languages are spoken in equal extents, we need to assume comprehension of both tongues, by the cast who played it. Dev Patel, with an obvious British accent in his English is a terrible misfit in that aspect and though he delights with expressiveness, him knowing stuff that call-centre people don’t, and talking in crystal clear English without flaws is beyond just fictitious: It’s outrageous! And that says something: Either we’re fools, or he’s clever to have gotten away with awards and premieres at festivals.
Listen, Boyle… I’m accepting neither. This means your movie, is two things at the same time, with the choice depending upon your intentions. A sloppily done satire or an exceptionally mediocre piece of celluloid, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ can’t be appealing to any Indian with a sense of true cinema. You’d need bias either way to take that which ridicules you, in the right spirit. And I assure you, I’ve got none…
This also doesn’t mean I’m ‘trashing’ the movie: I never deny that ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is worth a watch, for some truly sensational moments, enthralling music and stylish visuals. But I do proclaim this: It’s worth nothing more. And I feel sumptuously sad that the jury at the Golden Globes felt otherwise, and this is because I feel sad for cinema in itself…
STARRING: SHAHRUKH KHAN, ANUSHKA SHARMA, VINAY PATHAK
RATING:---SMILES---
I never said I’d stop reviewing films: I actually intended it to be more of an “I am stopping till the next best time…” Guess that came a little too soon, or too late, depending upon how people had been in my absence (Though my audience can hardly make a household!). Leaning away from that point of view, I prefer to enter a new one this time, for this new flick, and that would be what I’d like to call my “I’m not going to criticise another movie, I’d rather ignore it” point of view. So here goes this review…
Firstly I’d like to remove certain aspects of the film that have gone as far as becoming inevitable when intended for Indian audiences. And that includes:
SONGS: Incredibly mediocre. Even SRK’s last movie had a couple of noteworthy numbers but this time it’s not even an old-wine-in-new-bottle line up of tracks. The songs were better off fast-forwarded.
VINAY PATHAK: He doesn’t come up much, and fails to do anything but annoy save for one key sequence similar to that in movies where the One man – Two guises concept was employed: Like in Golmaal, or its tamil version “Thillu Mullu” and even there it’s actually the badshaah who touches your funny vein. Not the fatso who’s simultaneously making waves with a parallel venture named “Dasavidanya”
CLICHES: Added for comical touch, the typical goofy guys of any government office involving the protagonist, a fare that’s never been dropped from the Hindi circuit. So I would also like to siphon off Surinder’s co-workers, from Rab ne Bana di Jodi…
Surri realizes he’s fallen in love with the dame as soon as he spotted her (Well, who wouldn’t! I mean she’s not a thirty-something claiming to be young, but a true-blue girl hardly out of her teens!!!) But the vice-versa seems to be close to being impossible. “I need some time to change: To adapt myself to this new life” says she for which Surri says to himself, “But it is the old Taani that I love…” He wants the frivolous girl back in his wife, and he realizes she, (like a haul of Indian girls) like trivial movies with hunky heroes and unreal action sequences, not to mention song and dance.
He and his consultant (Vinay Pathak) decide that the new dance contest named “Dancing Jodi” is the ideal place for Surri to showcase the other side of him, or to instigate the dude in him. So shaving his moustache, ruffling his hair up a bit, and sporting trendy wear (with a frequent pulling down of his jeans at the back expressing how much of a discomfort the trousers are!) Surri luckily gets paired with Taani herself, but he hesitates to look into her eyes (Lest she finds out) and hence introduces himself as Raj with a quote involving a string of movies as a refrain, instead of saying a plain goodbye. Then begins the love triangle involving just two people…
It’s all about love and its ‘pains’, this movie: Surri’s paradoxical and fickle mind quite explicitly portrayed by Shah Rukh Khan, who proves he could be subtle too, in addition to the showman he is. Trying to make the two characters sound as different as possible, from voice modulations to ways of addressing the leading lady (Taani-ji and Taani-partner by Surri and Raj respectively) SRK cannot be termed to be a total hit, but his performance surely is beyond being passable. Anushka Sharma doesn’t seem to be aware in any way that it is her debut venture and that too one opposite the biggest star in the industry. That she out-beats his performance is beyond denial, but that could be because she was the only down-to-earth (perhaps even a little more down) character in a film involving caricatures. Teary-eyed most of the time, her expressiveness manages to leave you stunned in a few spots.“I disliked you so much, but still you loved me?!” is not an out-of-the-world quote in any way, but the broken voice in which she says it stirs, if not prickly…
‘Rab ne Bana di Jodi” isn’t fabulous: just something subtle, served with slight eccentricities. That doesn’t prevent us from enjoying this “heavenly couple” does it?
P.S. I know Anushka can’t be reading this, but I would be asking her all the same to tread the path that she’s placed her foot firm upon, and not become the mundane glam-doll actresses are nowadays…
