The 'Factory' aspect of Filmmaking

Director Paresh Mokashi definitely deserves accolades for making Harishchandrachi Factory(2009). The film depicts the struggle of Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema in making his first feature film Raja Harishchandra around 1913.


Besides the craft of the film itself, I think the title of the film, 'Harishchandrachi Factory' is not just apt but has an intriguing quality and Paresh Mokashi should be given credit for coining this interesting title.

The title is an integral part of the narrative of the film. While Phalke is engrossed in making his first movie, his colleagues question Phalke about what should they inform their people when they are asked about the work (work of filmmaking) they are carrying. Phalke says tell them that you are working in a 'factory' that manufactures movies.

Throughout the movie, while preparing to film Raja Harishchandra, Dadasaheb Phalke keeps guiding the people involved in the filmmaking in various capacities about the basics of their respective departments. He explains the actors about acting, the cameraman about shot-taking and the art-director about set designing. In the process of guiding these people, Phalke touches upon the various aspects of filmmaking and in a way lays foundations of the art of filmmaking.

I think the filmmaker's vision for this film was at its best when he coined the title 'Harishchandrachi Factory' because while establishing film as a form of art the director respects its aesthetic values but at the same time through the word 'factory' in the title he takes care to underline the 'commercial' and 'manufacturing' aspect of the craft of filmmaking.

Over the years various art forms like literature, music and dance have influenced and defined the art of filmmaking but at the same time filmmaking has always remained a commercial activity. No doubt the film brings forth the efforts taken by Phalke in establishing film is an art form but with the title 'Harishchandrachi Factory' the director makes it sure that audience doesn't overlook the 'commercial' reality of this art.

Siddiqui saab, hats off!!!

After watching Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani, you come with three prominent things on your mind. 1. Vidya Balan, 2.The city of Kolkata and 3. Officer Khan ie Nawazuddin Siddiqui's performance. Against all the plans and strategies of Vidya Bagchi and Satyuki, officer Khan stands strongly and distinctively as an antagonist in the film.... Nawazuddin Siddiqui just carves out space in your mind with his performance.

The character of of officer Khan's is on one hand and the character of Rakesh, a journalist in Peepli Live is on the other hand. Watch these two performances back to back and you will realize the caliber of Nawazuddin Siddiqui's acting prowess.

Remember in Peepli Live, when Rakesh a small town journalist of a vernacular newspaper at the end of the film raises questions to national TV channel journalist that why Natha's story is so important to media when there are number of other farmers who are dying of different reasons. The way he delivers the dialogues at that time is so peculiar and unique – he speaks to the journalist in completely oblivious to camera or any crew around – he speaks in so much of true-to-life manner!! Siddiqui saab hats off!!!

Recipe of a South Indian blockbuster

Umpteen number of cuts, too many and manifold kinds of transitions, convulsing camera angles, usage of all sorts of sound effects, foot tapping electric numbers, choreographed calisthenics, lyrics full of slang words, gimmicking-over-the-top fight sequences, storyline filled with a bit of revenge - a bit of romance – a bit of humour, a glamdoll, an overpowering villain and omnipresent-omniscient-omnipotent superstar hero

Does 'The Kite Runner' remain true to its essence ?

Recently I watched 'The Kite Runner', the 2007 film directed by Marc Forster. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Khaled Hossein. I haven't read the novel yet, so I really don't know how much the filmmaker has remained truthful to the soul of the story.

Has anybody read the novel and seen the film as well? Can the film be cited as the best adaptation of the novel? Has the filmmaker given the complete justice to the novel ? Is the film an exemplar of the way of making novel-based films?.... Your thoughts are welcome.

Business Man: from papers to screen

Recently I watched Mahesh Babu starrer Puri Jagannadh’s Business Man and it reminded me of the synopsis of this film Mr Ram Gopal Varma had posted on his once-upon-a-time active website, rgvzoom.com, I guess much before the film was shot. The synopsis was written in such a neat, tidy and impressive manner, that had I been the producer, I would have blindly invested my money to make this film. I was intrigued about this project particularly reading the line which says “the shooting style of “THE BUSINESS MAN” will fall somewhere inbetween the slickness of “COMPANY” and the entertainment quotient of “WANTED””.

I am deliberately sharing with readers the synopsis I had copied from the website.

Does possible impression of the 'Business Man' on paper and the 'Business Man' on screen comply ? Decide for yourself.

Synopsis:

By the year 2010, the underworld as we knew it has become non-existent primarily due to the Dawood Ibrahim gang going legitimate in Pakistan, Chota Shakeel becoming completely inactive, Chota Rajan co-operating with the various government agencies, Arun Gawli becoming a politician and Abu Salem being put in jail.

The success of the Mumbai Police in wiping out the underworld has been so total and so complete that the Police Department even disbanded their encounter squad teams as they were of no further use.

These developments were carefully being studied and observed by an entrepreneur from the South.

He was like so many other innumerable entrepreneurs from all over the country who land up in Mumbai with dreams of reinventing business practices which have become outdated. But this particular entrepreneur’s business was that of CRIME.

He minutely studied and educated himself on both the shortcomings and achievements of every gangster that ever ruled Mumbai, ranging from Haji Mastan to Vardha Bhai to Karim Lala to Dawood Ibrahim to Chota Rajan and then landed up in Mumbai to become its biggest gangster ever.

He believed that there is no such thing as right and wrong and there is no such thing as good and bad.

He also believed that everyone in this world go through their lives in one way or the other only by making deals. Whether it’s between husbands and wives or between parents and children or between Godmen and devotees or between politicians and voters, life is nothing but about making deals. So as long as everyone is into some kind of business or the other, he decided that even crime should be treated and dealt with like any other BUSINESS.

Welcome to the new-age gangster.

“The Business Man”

Guns don’t need agreements

The idea is to make “The Business Man” into a trilingual that is in three languages Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Unlike in the done to death rustic style of conventional gangster flicks the shooting style of “THE BUSINESS MAN” will fall somewhere inbetween the slickness of “COMPANY” and the entertainment quotient of “WANTED”

The shooting will commence from October 2010 and the film will be released by April 2011 and the core team members will be as followes :

 

 

(Whatever is you say over the the 'Business Man' on paper and the 'Business Man' on screen, but the above write up is the ideal way the synopsis of any film should be written)

Business Man, a Fantasy business

The film business thrives on masses’ fantasies. You pick up any average fantasy of the masses around, weave it in a storyline, take a star or if possible a superstar (this will ease the marketing task) to convey the story and the film will create the expected buzz on box office.

So at present in 2012, for Indians which is the fantasy city in India. Undoubtedly it’s the commercial capital of the country, Mumbai. Except Mumbai citizens, for rest of Indians, Mumbai is a dream city. Everyone, whether he is from North India or South India fantasizes to live a luxurious life in Mumbai… All Indians fantasize to rule Mumbai.

Mahesh Babu starrer Puri Jagannadh’s Business Man (remember it’s not one word Businessman) basically gives its audience a gratifying experience of living this fantasy. The Business Man Surya knows right since the first day he has arrived in Mumbai that he will rule the city (who would like to see a hero spending 2-3 nights on VT station hungry and frustrated).

Do not expect any character journey here (the hero is in control right since the day one).. though you have seen the beautiful and heart rendering journey of the character Satya in 1998 in the same city and it’s an irony that the director of this film has been the mentor and brain behind the Business Man.

Anyways once the hero arrives in the city with rocking confidence and deadly attitude, rest of the film remains a fantasy journey of two and half hours for its audience… an experience of fulfilling the fantasy, an experience of experiencing that heavenly gratification, the experience of having that orgasmic feeling of living your fantasy.

(God bless those who are remaking the film in Hindi)

Magic Vs Logic in Deewar (Part I)

I think Deewar is Salim-Javed’s ‘the best’ piece of work in their career. For me Sholay is the clever amalgamation of various mise-en-scene* from number of movies all over the world. Sholay is not original – it’s heavily but in right manner influenced by various film genres from across the globe. By ‘not original’ here I mean the backdrop of the film is not realistic. The portrayal of Indian village in Sholay is utterly fictitious or rather it’s portrayed in a manner to please the urban audience of that time.

But in case of Deewar, I always think that its narrative and mise-en-scene are truly originally Indian. It has the real urban ethos of 1970s’ India. It explores the moral dilemma of the urban middle class, it shows the dark side the underworld and at the end overtly it shows the triumph of good over the evil, moral over the immoral, ethical over the unethical, right over the wrong but at the core it subtly and successfully blurs the line between the two.

The magic of Deewar had worked and will continue to work for sure! But does this magic defy the logic. No, not in the entire film but at just one point… and at very crucial point in the film.

In Deewar, at the end of the movie Vijay is madly after the underworld don Samant as he has killed Anita (Anita is also carrying his child at the time of death). Ravi comes to know about it and lays siege around the building where Samant is staying. Vijay kills Samant – he is no mood to surrender – he somehow manages to escape but Ravi notices and starts chasing him. Vijay starts running and Ravi follows. The chase continues for a while and finally comes the moment when Ravi fires the fatal shot.

Now the question is why doesn’t Ravi shoot in Vijay’s leg ? When on the other hand in the middle of the movie while chasing a minor boy (who steals ‘rotis’) Ravi had particularly taken care to shoot in the boy’s leg. In case of his own brother, how come this time Ravi forgets to shoot in his leg and instead fires the fatal shot?


*Mise-en-scène: The term mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera —composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting. Mise-en-scène also includes the positioning and movement of actors on the set, which is called blocking

Manjha… revenge redefined

Revenge films are all about imparting justice and restoring order. They talk to out basic and primitive instinct of revenge, which we also know by other names like vengeance, retribution or retaliation. No other feeling but revenge is the most powerful feeling which had overpowered our history and our religion.

You are well acquainted with this emotion but you are not well acquainted with right kind of revenge films. Because of typically irritating bollywood revenge films the genre has always been projected as a triumph of the virtue over the vice; good finally winning against bad; hero killing the villain.

But what happens when the line between virtue and vice; good and bad; hero and villain starts getting blurred? When this line gets blurred and a little boy from Mumbai slums stands against the sexual harassment of his mentally retired younger sister, you get to see the most interesting short film I have ever seen, Manjha.

Manjha - a film by Rahi Anil Barve

Deool Aftermath…

Let me tell you what happens to Anna when he leaves the village Mangrool. Anna leaves for Bengaluru to stay with his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter (you remember Anna talking to them via video conferencing… right ?)

Anna’s son is a software engineer and he is working with one of the biggest international conglomerates in Bengaluru. He is an IIT pass out and married to a very finely cultured lady. She was a software engineer by profession (not IIT pass out) but decided to be a house-maker so to look after the bringing up of their daughter.

With Anna’s arrival the family is more than happy. Daughter-in-law is the happiest one as she knows that Anna will be sharing the responsibility of looking after her daughter.

Anna after settling down at his son’s home, soon starts rejuvenating his contacts in the city. He starts writing for newspapers. He prefers writing in Marathi and sometimes in English. He starts sending his write ups to newspapers like Sakal in Pune and Maharashtra Times in Mumbai. He starts basically writing on ‘globalization’, ‘commercialization’ and ‘commoditization’. His views are always appreciated by socialites of these cities.

He keeps writing about his village but avoids calling any of the villagers. Citizens from Pune and Mumbai always keep appreciating his articles and thoughts. People also start calling him for delivering lectures on the same subjects. Intermittently he feels that he should call back the villagers but soon he gets used to not calling them.

Meanwhile his son shifts to US for some official work. He asks Anna to come with them to US. His daughter-in-law exhorts. Finally just to fulfill the wish of his granddaughter he visits US and stays with them for a period of time.

He makes few friends in Maharashtra Mandal of New York but he soon finds those people quite shallow and uprooted. He comes back to India. His son had bought a 2 BHK flat in one the residential schemes of DSK builders (just for the sake on investment) in Pune. So he stays over there.

He has always found Pune’s climate and its social milieu very complimentary to his life’s style. So he prefers staying in Pune. Pune also reminds him of his college days when he was a student of Fergusson College. Every morning he prefers having breakfast at hotel Vaishali on Deccan and chatting up with his old friends. (Which also includes few older women).

Overall Anna has come to terms with life now. He has lived his life in rational and ‘scientific’ way. He has always been engaged in making rational choices in his life.

Since he left the village he has always lived with one strong emotion. He never gave recognition and words to that emotion. When he left the emotion was quite strong, but soon that emotion started losing its intensity. Slowly he learnt to forget that emotion and live life by engaging himself in some other meaningful activities.
Today Anna has grown quite old now. His memories are slowly fading away with his growing age… and that emotion… that guilt that ‘he left the village when the village needed him most’ is left with him like an hollow space in one of the deepest corners of his heart.

Dear Godfather...

U were different. It was ur first crime but when u killed those bastards, I felt the act was justified.

U fled; u betrayed me. U married that Sicilian gal, I kept on understanding u.

U came back, took over the business, convinced me, massacred ur enemies - n again the act was justified.

U killed your bro-in-law and dared to became Godfather of Connie’s child... So I asked u the ‘Truth’ and u said its not true.

Dear Godfather Michael Corleone, I love u and I hate myself for not being able to hate u… I am ur audience, u can call me Kay.

Grindhouse… Indian POV

So how do Indian viewers see Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s experiment of Grindhouse which has two films viz. Deathproof and Planter Terror? For those Indian viewers who are not exactly aware about the Hollywood film genres and traditions, both the films are just popcorn movies.

Indian popular movies are still struggling to show in an interesting and authentic manner the gory side of the violence. There are hardly any Indian popular movies, which actually celebrate and explore the violence on screen. Recently, ‘Not a Love Story’ a film by Ram Gopal Verma had attempted to portray the gory side of human violence on screen but the whole venture was more about exploring the authentic side of emotions behind the violence. At least I don’t remember any popular Indian movie, which uninhibitedly depicts the violence on screen.

Indian viewers are really deprived of the pleasure of watching the representation of their own wilder, gory and primitive violent instincts on screen…and all Hollywood gory movies do quench that thirst. There are millions of Indian viewers of all age group, according to whom more the gory presentation, more the film is enjoyable. In this context for those violence-crazy Indian viewers Grindhouse is not one of the Hollywood B movies but the model of how the Indian movies should be.

It’s ‘Agony-path’

Big B starrer Agneepath itself is not a flawless movie but it has some beautiful moments. Besides being a revenge drama, the movie made in 1990 was also an attempt to exploit the then larger than life image of Amitabh Bachchan.

The character of Vijay Dinanath Chouhan in a way was an extension of Vijay Verma of Deewar. Through Agneepath, Mukul Anand tried to explore Vijay Verma of Deewar in isolation and in different time. Overtly Agneepath is a revenge drama but basically it’s a story of a protagonist with a noble mind, who due to unfortunate circumstances in his life leads the wrong path and till the end of his life struggles to restore his life to the right morale note.

In this context the moral conflict between Vijay’s mother and Vijay set in Deewar also is also the essence of the Big B starrer Agneepath. Revenge is the spine of the film but the soul of the film is the moral conflict of Vijay Dinanath Chouhan. You take away the moral conflict from the film and the film loses all its beautiful moments.

I think Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath commits the mistake of bypassing the moral conflict and loses its soul. In Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath, the character of Vijay’s mother, Suhasini Chouhan, is portrayed as insignificant one. After losing her husband she comes to unknown city of Mumbai and just because Vijay is leading the wrong path, she drives him away from home. As both the central characters part their ways the moral conflict automatically loses its intensity and the whole experience of watching the film turns into an ‘Agony-path’.

Moral of the Kahani is…

Moral of the Kahani is…

Kahani, directed by Sujoy Ghosh and starring the sensation of 2012 generation Vidya Balan is undoubtedly an arresting thriller. Mind boggling twists and turns, Kahani is definitely a roller coaster experience. The film was complete experience for me except three things in the film.

1: As the story of Mrs Vidya Bagchi searching for her husband unfolds, there are many instances when Mrs Bagchi remembers various kinds of incidences and moments, which she had spent with her husband, Arnab Bagchi. On screen during her flashbacks the person who appears her husband finally turns out to be Milan Damji who is actually the killer of her husband. Mrs Bagchi can stage a make-believe phenomena for others but why would she have false memory of her own husband?

2: Bob Biswas tries to kill Mrs Bagchi and becomes quite successful in petrifying and intimidating her. But in her next meet with Rana she just doesn’t share anything about this shocking incident.

3: At the end when it gets revealed that Mrs Bagchi’s intentions behind the whole drama was to give justice to her husband who was killed in Metro attack, you also realize that death of Agnes and Doctor were actually the innocent victims of this well-thought plan. Unfortunately Mrs Bagchi at the end doesn’t show any kind of regret for being the cause of the death of Agnes and Doctor.

Well moral of the Kahani is except these three elements Kahani was a wonderful experience for me.

Decoding Sholay

For the person who loves Sholay and equally loves the medium of Cinema, in his life he always has to pass through the phases of understanding the magic called “Sholay.”

I don’t know how to define my present phase of understanding Sholay, but during this phase I am definitely not in awe of the performances in the movie also I don’t get moved at all by the ‘tear jerker moments’ in the movie – in other words during this phase I can successfully distance myself from the overall impact of the film.

But what exactly I am doing during this phase - during this phase I am trying to decode the influences, inspirations behind the making of this epic movie. Here I am going to make a list of the resemblances and similarities between the films (Hindi as well as non-Hindi) released before Sholay and the Sholay:

I think the look-n-feel of Sholay itself largely resembles the genre of ‘Spaghetti Western’, which emerged in the mid-1960s.

I think Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) must have been the biggest influence behind the Sholay.

The killing of Brett McBain and his three children in the beginning = Killing of Thakur’s family

The pattern killing of the youngest family member of the Thakur’s family exactly corresponds with the killing of the youngest son Brett McBain.

(Continues….)