This has been a good year for cinema. I speak, of course, from a personal point of view. From a purely objective, oh-man-I-am-glad-I-could-watch-it-in-the-theatres year. The last I was this high (well admittedly, then I was a bit MORE high) was in Dec-Jan 2006, when one after the other, three movies released on the screens, which burnt their presence into my consciousness, so much so that I remember one late night show, after which I spent some one and a half hours in the parking lot exhorting one telephone number after another in my phone book to watch it NOW!
(The movie, for academic interest was Zinda. Yes, if it was not for Zinda, I wouldn't have ever discovered OldBoy, and for that I shall forever be in eternal debt of that movie. The other two were Peter Jackson's version of King Kong, and the ebullient Rang De Basanti).Ah, but this isn't 2006, and this is no longer the leave 10 mins before the start of the movie in your pajamas, put your feet up on the front row in the multiplex night show Delhi. This is I need to plan to watch a movie one week in advance, and yet all multiplexes houseful for even dumb movies Bangalore. Having had my theatre ration cut down to a pathetic one-movie-a-month or so from one every friday night show, it is still credible that I have managed to catch movies as and when they release, and form my own opinion of them. It is unpardonable of me to have not put them on as and when I was floating in the air about them, and I can still hear them screaming around in my ears every time I am riding my bike (Somehow, I still get all my ideas while riding). So well, here is the vestige of what remains on to be said about those flashes of brilliance in an otherwise dull life. The three directors I shall be talking about have all shown their own brand of cinema in previous outings at the box office, and yet this time around, each has come out of the way to be creatively different (for the abject want of a better word!)
Chak de India works despite Shah Rukh Khan. There! I have been waiting to say that, for some three months now. The first time I went to see it, I was cringing with the idea of seeing Shah Rukh Khan in a Yash Raj film. An hour or so into the movie at Inox, and I was aching to hoot and holler all I could for it. I couldn't, not because of some ulterior respect for the surroundings, but for the utter terror my friends would react with, as soon as I would as much as whistle.
A day later, I made amends. Took a few friends to a local cinema theatre, and stood on the seats and hollered and whistled all I could. This IS that kind of a movie. Shimit Amin couldn't have assembled a better cast. And yes, those cringe-worthy moments with Shah Rukh Khan (if they really had to, why couldn't they just plagiarize Al Pacino's pep up talk 'Life's about inches' from Any Given Sunday instead of the utterly moronic Sattar minute) would have had to be the sacrifice to be paid for being in a Yash Raj Production, but the rest of the cast just takes you across in such a pleasant aside from the mundane. All the cliches work, and yet move beyond their original inheritance. To create this level of excitement and maintain that crispness through the length of the movie was brilliant, and I still would anyday gladly walk into a theatre for a repeat offering of this. To think that Shimit Amin had handled the mercurial Nana Patekar in his previous outing for Ab tak Chappan!
The next one was a complete and utter surprise. And in my humble opinion, simply the best movie of the year.
Johnny Gaddaar is simply so delightful in every little nook and corner you look at, that there is just no other way of describing it. Right from it's website (go on, have a look) to the look of it's posters (done by a company called Marching Ants) to the title credits, to each of the songs, to the faithfully maintained theme throughout every aspect of the movie. And we haven't even started about the movie yet. I kept thinking that every person involved in the making of the movie would have had an insane amount of fun at every minute level. I personally found it exhilarating, have already seen it twice, and most probably shall be the first in line to buy the dvd off the shelves. For a long time, I was mulling over the choice of Rimi Sen as Shardul's wife as perhaps the only glitch in the movie. And then later somehow, it did make sense. The wife of a character like Shardul who is nouveau riche and doesn't know quite how to behave in the company his riches puts him in would have to be a trophy wife. One who looks hot. And yet is dumb.
I happened to meet Sriram Raghavan in Bombay courtesy of Baiscope Entertainment, over the screening of his very first movie Raghu Raghavan, and it was heartening to see the man look so relaxed and at ease with himself. This after the movie apparently bombed at the box office, and was taken off most centres in two weeks (there are people who are still watching the movie every now and then, off youtube- apparently, some enterprising soul has uploaded the entire movie in ten minute snippets on the website, or of pirated movie dvds, and I get daily calls of affirmation on just how beautiful the movie is. There are people who are rediscovering the movie after the second viewing, and coming around to the view that it is indeed a classic). Someone from the audience happened to ask Sriram whether it makes sense to invest in one of his movies since even though people happen to like his movies, they inevitably bomb, while a Dhol or a Heyy Babyy does brisk business. He replied with a smile, "I always knew that a movie like Dhol or Dhamaka would do much better business than mine. But the question is whether I could make a movie like that? I don't think so. So well, that is that!"
Apparently, it took Raghavan eleven long years to bring Johnny Gaddaar to the screen. I can completely understand that. Though how he kept it alive on a slow burner for this long is something perhaps that I have to learn from him. In the meanwhile, all I can do is be thankful that I could see it on the screen, and be glad that someone out there is having fun at his job.
The third movie of the lot is perhaps the most poignantly and unapologetically personal movie in a long long time.
No Smoking deserves a standing ovation just for it's existence. Anurag Kashyap (and the people who have backed him, including Vishal Maqbool Bharadwaj) have their hands into something which would have definitely seen blank stares at the script narrating stage.
No Smoking deserves a mention for the rousing debate it has caused all over the blogosphere. It deserves a round of applause for casting John Abraham in the lead. But most of all, and at the most personal level, it deserves a heart felt gratitude for the dreams it is still causing me. It is not a movie that can strictly be talked about. There are enough flaws and more in the movie yes, but it is more akin to an experience that needs to be felt, or if I could say it without being too cheeky, to be inhaled.
It is sad, that such creativity was not rewarded with more moolah over the box office for two of the three above mentioned movies. Quite sad that they would blank out of the viewer's mind in a few more days. I hope it doesn't wreak the spirits or the bank accounts of the directors. It would be sad for people who applaud good cinema.
I would have mentioned Bheja Fry as well, had it been even a bit more entertaining. It involved two of my favourite people in cinema today, Rajat Kapoor and Vinay Pathak, and yet failed to clinch that rousing attention.
I missed one of the other movies that passed by with a hush hush, Manorama- Six Feet Under. I confess that it was the title that put me off completely, even after I had heard good things about it. But a remake of Chinatown, in hindi, set in the hinterlands of Rajasthan! This definitely deserves to be seen. And I shall do so as soon as I am able to get my hands on a dvd.
By the way, on an aside, every interesting movie of late, has either Vinay Pathak or Ranvir Shorey playing a cameo in it. Pretty far from the Channel V House Arrest days, but I have been a faithful fan of the duo since then. More power to them!
P.S. I just noticed that Marching Ants doesn't even have the work they have done for Johnny Gaddaar on the website. They cite Ek Hasina Thi, but not Johnny G. This is sad! Really Really Sad.
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