Movies

Oh wow this was a terrific court drama! I was half expecting to be slow noirish boring movie but this was riveting watch.

Could have been so much funnier than it became. Parts of the movie are hilarious but overall cuts a sorry figure with a such an interesting topic.

Dune 2 was SPECTACULAR! Move over Christopher Nolan, this is the new bar on how to mount a big budget spectacle. The scale at how this movie is framed and shot makes it a must watch on as big a screen as possible.

I could barely make it to the interval of this movie. Putrid trash.

What a bore. This movie should have been far more nail biting, engrossing and intense than it is. All it becomes is just lame bore. So disappointed.

This was a harrowing movie to watch, almost horror movie. I did know much about the history but wow what a nightmare and the movie really brings the nightmare to life.

After reading raving reviews of the movie our expectations were too high from this movie; unfortunately didn’t meet the hype. Way too artsy noiry.

Sadly was no match to the masterpiece of the first Jigarthanda. Starts off promising but is overlong and overwrought in second half killing the movie completely.

For a movie buff like me, I have surprisingly seen very few movies this year so far. Perhaps its the lack of quality films, or perhaps just the lull before some good movies arrive (sorry, Harry Potter is beyond my interest). I’ve been catching some movies on DVD and PS3, but even them, I have been turning off dead bored after an hour. Yesterday I happened to see Vaaranam Aayiram (One thousand elephants), a tamil movie with english sub titles on youtube. I had happened to know that the movie was about influence of fathers on their sons and something like that; I have no idea why I happened to land on this movie yesterday, but I am absolutely glad I did. This has to be one of the best movies I’ve seen this year, though this movie released last year.

I have always been fascinated by portrayal of Father-Son relationships in movies; I often think this has been an under utilized theme in film genre, for whatever reasons unknown. Perhaps the scope of theatrics or melodrama get reduced I guess when you put two men together, and they don’t have a girl to go after; not to mention the age difference. There have been few movies however that have tackled the relationship very well, of which Mughal-E-Azam, Shakthi and Gardish come to my mind immediately. I can safely add Vaaranam Aayiram to that list now.

Making an semi auto-biographical movie is a daunting task; the director wants to put a slice of his life into the movie, at the same time try to make it larger than life and ends up taking cinematic liberties. Not to mention, most auto-biographical movies tend to be incredibly self indulgent, slow, and long. Hence, I don’t think such movies are everybody’s cup of tea either. Either you love such movies, or you end up hating them. VA is all of this, and I belong to the group that loved this movie, in spite of its flaws and some really far fetched scenarios.

However the movie works, because the characters make it work. I believe that unless the characters of a movie or a TV show draw you in their life, it rarely works. And especially for a subject of this type, it is paramount that the characters shine through the frame. Luckily, Surya who essays the role of the father and son does a brilliant job of it. He single handedly carries the entire long three introspective episodic drama. And when you get some beautiful cinematography (seriously, I live in bay area and SFO never looked this beautiful!), great music and some really stand out scenes, they only elevate the movie.

What I liked about the father-son relationship depicted in the movie was the subtlety. Neither characters overbear each other, and neither of them are totally aloof. As Surya recounts his life and his fathers influence in his life through his ups and downs, it comes across as genuine and heartfelt, without the melodrama. Few of the scenes about the relationship that were really standouts to me; when the father leaves his son at engineering college and tells him he is on his own and reminds him he’s an adult now to make his own decisions is brilliant; or when his father gets stern and locks his son up over drug abuse, and then later leaves him to find himself; or when he himself can’t handle it and breaks down when his son talks about losing his girlfriend on the phone; or the last time the father bids him goodbye before the son goes on a rescue mission; and many more, each of the scenes were particularly well done.

Its not to say that beyond the father-son relationship this movie had no charm; it did, and lots of it. Sameera Reddy looks like a million bucks and her storyline with Surya is fresh, even if its predictable. While their love story was young and vibrant, the track between Divya Spandana (Priya) and Surya at a later stage in life is understandably more mature and underplayed. Simran as Surya’s brings about a nice freshness to her role as well.

But this movie, clearly belongs all the way to Surya. First as the young father in 1970s, and then as the teenage kid, then as a college student who fails, the guy who’s madly in love, to the self destructive drug addict, to the man on a self discovery mission, to his eventual success as a Army Major, Surya carries each of the personalities rather brilliantly. It does wholesomely belong to him.

Were there any flaws? Plenty – for one, the movie is very long. And there is a whole lot of story that is told. So some scenes so seem unnecessary. The rescue mission in Delhi jars the narrative for a brief while as does the rescue mission at end. The meaning of the title is actually handled rather disappointingly in the end and could have been told nicer. VA is at its best when it never gets into action movie mode (though Delhi and Kashmir were beautifully shot!), but I guess the director had to take the liberty to keep all section of crowds happy! I was not bothered by these as the characters had drawn me in completely.

All in all, I absolutely enjoyed watching Vaaranam Aayiram; though this review is a little too late, I think I had to write it up. This is a moving film that deserves to be seen and appreciated. If not for anything else, the father-son portrayal makes the movie absolutely worth it!

Regular readers of this blog (pray who?), might remember that I wasn’t too kind to Rakesh Mehra’s Rang De Basanti when reviewing it. I found that movie irresponsible, and sending a terribly wrong message, not to mention equating terrorism with patriotism.

With Delhi 6, Mehra continues in the same vein. While I’ve been twittering about my feelings about this movie, I really thought it needed a longer post, simply because this is a movie I had been waiting for a while. Any how, I am not very keen on discussing plot, acting, and other technicalities here, but simply list out the problems I had with this movie, and why I think this Mehra just jumped the shark on this one.

~ First off, what was the message of this movie? A large part of this movie is dedicated to introducing caricatures of Delhi 6, who by the looks of it have not ventured out of that zip code for their lives. Making a 2 and half hour Nukkad episode gets gyrating after a while.

~ Had the movie simply tried not to get serious with its own message, it might have worked. When the Kala Bandar becomes the central focus of the plot, it really gets on the nerves. The ending is not just ludicrous, but incredibly hackneyed; to even equate the Ramayan philosophies to Hindu-Muslim tensions and people doing their “We are all good, but need to fight the black monkey within us” is so far fetched that its laughable.

~ Coming to Kala Bandar itself, we know that this monkey has created menace in the nukkad well before Roshan arrives to Delhi; yet its very convenient for everyone to assume Roshan is the kala bandar. How?

~ Since when was under-age (and I mean really under-age) smoking so much fun in the movie? If the movie was a light comedy, perhaps it could be dismissed in a lighter vein; However trying to package this as a light scene in a message movie doesnt work Mr. Mehra. Its highly irresponsible to show that these kids who smoke are not even reprimanded by anybody for the same. Is that the message that was meant to be conveyed – that it purani dilli, it was ok to be a kid and smoke?

~ “India works, because its people make it work” is not a self congratulatory note to Indians that Roshan is trying to imply. So is Roshan really saying, look, its ok to get beaten by a cop, or a cop to trying to attempt a rape on low-caste girl, or a low caste girl not allowed entry in houses, because well, thats how India works, and the people have accepted it and hence it works? Is this the message that Mehra conveniently says – well, if you live in Delhi 6, expect this and more, but then it works, because the people make it work? I almost laughed out loud when Roshan says this on screen.

~ Oh please, Mr. Mehra, I know you have a penchant for repetitiveness. You should have learnt from your previous movie that when you say “Na Koi Martha Hain Naa Koi Maartha Hain” hundred times in a movie, it usually suffocates the viewers out; Well, your never-ending ram leela sequences are just that. Enough Ram hamming.

~ Obviously, every American Indian must travel to Taj Mahal no?

~ What a massacre of music in the movie. Why bother trying to picturise half songs with so many edits? What a disaster. None of the songs even registered in the movie, save for Dil Gira Da-Fatan.

~ Overall, I thought the movie made a mess of what it wanted to convey; Mehra seems to be in a boat where he wants to convey social message through his movies, but wants to do it in a “different way”. And like his last attempt, it falls flat as simply irresponsible piece of film-making!

All things considered, I still think Rakesh Mehra, you could be a terrific film-maker if you simply abandons your quest for beaming public service messages through your movies. Leave that for Raju Hirani will you? Meanwhile try to find the dark side of life like you did in Aks for your next movie. We know you are capable, just simply leave your moral science teacher hat at home