‘Drishyam’: Great story, less of cinema

‘Drishyam’ is a critically acclaimed as well as a commercially successful movie in all its versions. It’s a commendable achievement considering the original version was shot in a regional language. While I watched this movie, I couldn’t resist comparing it with another movie of the same genre i.e ‘Kahani’. Both are suspense thrillers and keep you captivated till the last second of the movie.

In ‘Drishyam’, Vijay Salgaonkar is a family man in a small village in Goa who runs a cable business and works nights. He has a loving wife, one teenage daughter and a younger one. The family is aspiring like any other middle class family in India and cherishes the conservative values. Their simple and peaceful life is disturbed due to an accidental killing of a blackmailer by the elder daughter, in presence of his wife. The victim happens to be a son of powerful and apparently ruthless woman police officer. What follows is game of wits and battle for saving family by Vijay against the all powerful cop. Anticipating that circumstantial evidence and personal animosity against corrupt local cop will bring the cops at his door steps, he plans a daring cleanup operation and saves his family. Ultimately, he comes out clean with a clear conscience and tells his wife that in some circumstances the judgment of wrong or right is beyond human ability and anyone would have acted similarly.

Why is ‘Drishyam’ a good movie? There is very small answer to the question: good story. It keeps you riveted till the end. You long for answers like the desperate cop and admire the efforts of a commoner pitted against the powerful. There is obvious sympathy towards the family considering the conditions in which the unfortunate and unintended murder takes place. This helps the viewers to identify the protagonists clearly. While the investigation is certainly conclusive about the ignorance of the family in the eyes of the husband of the cop, who acts as a ‘Dr Watson’ of the cop, the cop reveals the greater design and concludes that Vijay is the one behind the disappearance of her son. This revelation comes out as a big twist and along with Mr Cop, the viewer too understand Vijay’s design to fabricate the counter evidence. How Vijay’s gutsy pre planning helps him survive remains to be seen on the screen.

The seasoned actors have done their jobs with ease. Ajay Devgan, Tabu, Shriya Saran and Rajat Kapoor have done good jobs. Special mention must be made of Kamlesh Sawant who plays corrupt local cop and the girls playing the daughters of Vijay. Casting is perfect.

‘Drishyam’ does play a limited mind game with the viewers but they might love to see more of how the impeccable family bonding fails to crumble in the adversity. However, I felt that ‘Drishyam’ does not give a cinematic experience as good as ‘Kahani’ gave, where the camera speaks a lot instead of characters. Possibly original ‘Drishyam’ was made with limited resources but with no such constraints applicable in Hindi this could have looked better. It looks an average budget Hindi movie. But for these smaller handicaps, which do not hamper the viewers good experience anyway, this movie is a worth watch.

The movie is made against the background of Goa, my current place of residence and it was quite amusing to see the references to places, practices and language of the place. There were shots in the movie where the family goes to the movie hall and it was shot in the same hall where I was watching the movie. Interesting.

My rating: 7 out of 10 

Bahubali: Awesome fantasy

I recently watched dubbed Hindi film ‘Bahubali: the beginning’. The film has some awesome scenes of a historical fantasy world. This film is already a huge hit worldwide. Many accolades are showered though this is only a first of the two series, the second of which will follow in 2016.

Shiva is a village boy who is often curious to know what lies beyond the mountains that border his village. He is curious because he keeps getting indications of existence of other civilization beyond the natural boundary of mountains, jungles and the waterfalls. Once a mask found in the waterfall propels his desire to cross the mountains and meet his fantasy girl He then happens to land in the world of tribal’s fighting against the mighty forces of Mahishmati Kingdom to secure the release of Devasena. Shiva clandestinely understands the developments while befriending tribal warrior girl Avantika. For the sake of his love with Avantika he decides to engage himself in the mission of the releasing Devasena.

Avantika

Fantasy

Cut to grand Mahishmati: A fabulously wealthy state of Mahishmati is ruled by oppressive King Vallabh. Devasena, the jailed queen is in reality the mother of Shiva and sister in law of King Vallabh. Shiva successfully rescues Devasena from the clutches of Vallabh and in process gains the knowledge that he is revered by the folks and soldiers in Mahishmati as Bahubali.The mystery of his popularity by the name of Bahuabali unfolds in a flashback which is the story of succession battle between two princes - Bahubali and Vallabh. They are cousins being brought up by de facto queen of Mahishmati named Shivagami. Upon growing up, the succession battle takes a decisive turn in the ensuing war against oppressors Kalakeyas. After the victory, queen awards her judgement in the favour of immensely popular prince Bahuabali and decides to hand over reins of army to Prince Vallabh. Shiva, after successful release of Devasena, understands his true identity of being the son of Bahubali and Devasena. But the end takes a twist when loyal army guard Katappa declares that he was responsible for killing of King Bahubali.

Mahishmati

The biggest draw of the film is breathtaking visualization of the Mahishmati kingdom, war scenes and world of Shiva before leaving it in search of his ladylove. It’s truly world class and can easily pass of as a Hollywood work. No words are enough to praise the confidence and belief of the directors and producers of this cinema in their technical team. The only jarring part is that such graphics leave a better impact when they display humanly impossible work in a humanly possible way. The directors (including technical directors) here take the liberty with the technology to create stunts as if performed by a super flying alien. Shiva jumps and summersaults like a Superman or Spiderman. This takes away the seriousness of the struggle of a village boy to gain his love through a struggle. Though I watched dubbed movie, I can easily say that music is just passable.

The biggest test in the epic movie of this scale is to keep the audience hooked with great story alongside riveting grandeur of scenes. Bahubali successfully does it.It is a historical fantasy which takes you into the world of Shiva, Avantika and the succession battle for the Kingdom of Mahishmati. The test also lies in developing the minor characters and giving them significant roles. Here characters like Katappa, Queen Shivagami, Devsena, Avantika are well developed and seen playing their respective roles in the life of Shiva and Bahubali.

On the acting front Prabhas who duplicates as Shiva and Bahuabali, is seen doing what every Indian hero has to do in movies. Be a superhero, romance with the fantasy girl, be a darling of parents, enjoy adulation of the friends and folks and finally be the savior of the helpless. Prabhas though fits himself physically very well in both the roles, he looks awkward in places. Tamanna can look beautiful but its confirmed again that she has severe limitations in acting skills. Anushka Shetty and Ramya play their parts with ease. Special mention should be made of Rana Dugubatti and Satyaraj who respectively play Vallabh and Katappa. Rana, frankly speaking does a better job than Prabhas. This movie would not be the same without tremendous screen presence of Katappa. Kudos.

Vallabh

Katappa 

Final words are reserved for the war scenes between Mahishmati and oppressor Kalakeyas. The battle scenes are so grand that they will set a benchmark for every upcoming India movie. The efforts taken to create the environment of battle and its swings are sensitively picturised to bring the feel of battle to the viewers. However, the battle strategies, arms, arnours of the soldiers and the weaponry are apparently show deep influence of the western warfare tactics shown in numerous Hollywood movies. Yet they are passed off as Indian.

As a person grown up watching Hindi movies and equating them to Indian movies, time has possibly come to acknowledge the innovation brought to India by the regional cinema. It is growing is size, scale, innovation, grandeur and it may soon overshadow typed Bollywood unless they change. While resource wise the Hindi cinema is still a bigger industry, the out of the box thinking displayed here is missing. ‘Bahubali: the beginning’ is definitely a red flag for Bollywood. 

‘Queen’ and ‘English Vinglish’:Adventures of Indian women

Gone are the days when one use to see movies only at the time of release or re-release. With advent of technology one can grab the CD any time, download the movie from intenet or simply wait for the satellite release. Therefore I happen to see two movies : one ‘Queen’ and the other ‘English Vinglish’,  long time after their theater release. It was striking to note that both the films potray female Indian protagonists mustering courage to go out and encounter the foreign cultures without being aided by their male partners.The stories were definitely in sync with the changing india and fast changing Indian values.

First lets consider Rani of ‘Queen’. She sets out on a solo honeymoon after being dumped at the altar by the groom. Solo honeymoon is a strange idea and in conservative India, it would never be approved for the young girls who have never been out of their towns. Her parents agree for the sake of her happiness and on the trust that she will be with some distant relatives of theirs. Instead, Rani chooses to lodge herself in the same hotel which is booked for her honeymoon stay. She makes friends there and finally sets out of Paris to visit other European city on her own.  While on tour she hesitantly stay puts in hostel with three male roommates eventually befriending them. She also accidentally happens to regenerate the interest of her groom in her and he starts following her for winning her back. She goes on to win a challenge in a cooking show and gains a confidence of lifetime which she lacked throughout. Finally the assertive and confident Rani decides to ditch her groom for good.

The case of Shashi is little different in ‘English Vinglish’. She is a typical middle class Indian housewife but enterprising enough to run a small business of making laddoos. She is mocked at by family members due to poor knowledge of English. She feels alienated in her own family since she is in constant company of English speaking kids and husband, who take her for granted eveytime and underestimate her ability to learn. She makes a maiden trip to America for her niece’s marriage without accompanied by family, who plan to join her lately. She ends up joining a tuition for English speaking in order to keep her engaged. Her adventure of discovering of urban American culture while doing tuitions remains a close secret except one of her niece who knows about it. She goes on to make good friends in tuition class and impresses one Frenchman enough to like her. When her family surprises her by turning up early in America, her remaining classes and final examination is likely to be missed out. She arranges secretly to appear in examination, which falls on wedding day, but circumstances compel her to miss it.There is more in store as the entire bunch of classmates and her tutor turns up at wedding at the invitation of her niece. She introduces them to her husband as good friends. He is still unaware about her tuitions. She delivers a speech after the wedding, wishing the marrying couple well in life while highlighting the importance of mutual understanding, family and kids. She does it in English, which surprises everyone. Tutor treats the speech as examination speech and awards her the certificate. She regains her respect and love in the eyes of her  family, which was about to be lost just because of a poor understanding  of a foreign  language. Happily and smartly she assures her husband of her love, who is visibly shaken due to a suspected bond between her and the Frenchman.

Underlying message to the world and to the Indians  is that there is a class of people in India who is preparing themselves slowly but surely for facing the world.This is compelling need of the hour for some who are either pushed or pulled in to the circumstances. This is a baby step towards making a big section of society ready for the world. Both the protagonists in films, teach us that you can embrace new things without compromising Indian values. In fact both of them display their strengths to the world and win the hearts.

We want more: Indian’s love for plump girls continues

Indian men are fascinated with plump girls. There should not be any second opinion about it. The fascination of Indians is reflected in the success of the actresses they love to see on the cinema screen. Right from the beginning of the show business and the era of ‘girls playing roles of girls’, Indians have loved to watch their curvy dreamgirls dance to the tunes of mood elevating music. Exception was brought in by Zeenat Aman, who probably was the first actor to showcase the western idea of beautiful body. She was slimmer, duskier with universal features, yet was completely Indian in attitude and mannerism.  Her contemporaries like Parveen Bobby continued the trend. Changing ideas of health and beauty with the changing cultural attributes of Indians and cultural sensibilities, it was expected that there will be more beauties with universal idea of beauty, ruling the Indian silver screen.

Idea of liking fuller beauties is essentially Indian as we can some exemplary features of sensuously curvy bodies in age old sculptures and Ajanta paintings. They definitely are representative of Indian choice. This age old idea runs alongside a cult love for ‘odd ones’ like Zeenat and Parveen. But it is safe to say that they were never the first choice of Indian masses as their times were ruled by ‘heavy weights’ like Hema Malini and Rekha. Even after the slimmer beauties came in, there has always a scope for fuller ones as their reserved space in Indian minds cannot be replaced. Even today we have the likes of Sonakshi, Parineeti, Vidya Balan, Sonam Kapoor, Huma Quereshi and busty south Indian actresses ruling the minds and hearts of their fans. 

Even foren beauties like Katrina and Jaqueline are tall and burly though not plump. I even believe that Kareena was loved till she was typically healthy looking Punjaban. She failed to ‘satisfy’ her fans the moment she presented herself in ‘zero figure’.  

The ideal choice of Indian men is the one, who satisfy their wish to see Indian girls dancing in western clothes, don bikinis, wear amrapali suit and yet appear gorgeous in rich silk saree with gajra in the hair. That’s the way to demand best of both the world. However, the broader mind set of Indians in the recent years, is reflected in growing number of couples with desi girls in bikinis tops on Goan beaches, with mehndi on the legs. It simply means traditional marriage is followed by honeymooning on beaches in western attires.

Alternatively, I think the idea of ‘healthy beauties’ is universal that’s the reason why Englishmen tell their ‘fuller mates’ that they have ‘more to love’.