SHANGHAI (2012)

SHANGHAI opens with a slow-mo scene where we see a mob of rioters looting a shop and rubbing black paint on the corpulent face of the shop proprietor. We see him struggling, we see his face glisten, black and monstrous, and yet, for all its brutality and brutishness, I dare you to look away. This scene pretty much sets the ball rolling for the film in terms of style. Scene after scene, we are bombarded by the vision of a colossal, rotting, filthy system, rife with corruption, and yet all this makes for such a delightful treat, you walk out of the cinema feeling guilty.

Dibakar Bannerjee has arrived, and with his fourth film, has crafted his best yet. This is bound to become a modern classic of Indian cinema. Attempting a genre rarely attempted (and almost never done well) in Bollywood, he gives us a political thriller fit to stand with the best that the world has to offer.

Based on the novel Z by Vassilis Vassilikos (and yes, I keep forgetting the guy’s name, so I Wiki-ed him), the film depicts the CM of an unnamed state, and her coalition partner, spearheading the building of an International Business Park in a town called Bharatnagar, hailing it as their pet project to put India on the financial fast-track. However, opposition comes from Dr Ahemadi (Prosenjit), a Socialist thinker and New York-based professor and writer, and his team (including his student and lover portrayed by Kalki) who point to the thousands of people who would be displaced from their homes by this project, and protest against it. Death threats are made, an assassination attempt takes place. An IAS officer (Abhay Deol) is brought in for damage control. In the midst of this is a seedy cameraman (Emraan Hashmi) who shoots some crucial evidence inadvertently and, as a result, is thrown against his will into the thick of things.  The screenplay is deliriously good, building up paranoia and fear layer by layer, as the plot twists and turns, loyalties change and conspiracies emerge. The seedy underbelly of Bharatnagar becomes a battlefield, every shadow hiding an unknown danger. Kudos also to the non-traditional, almost Orwellian ending.

Dibakar’s direction in this film is impeccable. From use of music to use of location, he is spot-on in every department. A scene shot with a hand-held camera from the back of a truck showing the city burning during a riot, the camera wheeling and turning, stands out for its dizzying flair. Yet another scene comes to mind when Kalki and Emraan are running through a riot-affected area in Bharatnagar under cover of night. There are many ways to shoot this kind of scene: from the back, making the audience a third member of the party, (hopefully) creating a sense of paranoia; from the front, allowing the audience to see the panic-stricken faces of the protagonists, (hopefully) creating a sense of solidarity between the viewers and the viewed. Dibakar goes for an innovative approach. He shots them in profile, from the side, with long shots. He tracks them as they run and hide as jeeps carrying goons drive past. Then for quite some time we don’t see them, as a row of shops come in between the camera and the protagonists. For a long time, we can only hear their labored breathing and their footsteps. Knowing as we do by then, that they might easily be killed, this blindfold, so to say, only heightens the tension of the scene. We prick our ears for sound of a gunshot, a yell, a groan of pain.

The acting by all three leads as well as the huge cast of supporting players is excellent. Abhay Deol is flawless as the Tamil Brahmin IAS officer with integrity; Kalki is also very good as a woman on a mission of vengeance. But Hashmi is the surprise package here. I was not a huge fan of his. But now I am. Stained teeth, shifty gait, et al, he plays the part of a street-smart videographer/pornographer brilliantly. He is equally good post-interval when certain events in his life force him to pick a side. The supporting performances from Prosenjit as the idealistic activist, Farooque Sheikh as a corrupt bureaucrat and Supriya Pathak as the enigmatic Chief Minister, are exquisite as well.

I can see no reason why you should avoid seeing this film. Revel in the filth. Cower in the shadows. Laugh at the ludicrousness of it all. Bolo bolo bolo, Bharat maata ki jai! 

A very slick 8/10 from me.

RUBY SPARKS (2012)

What is the responsibility of a writer towards a character that he creates? To what extent can his taking liberties with a character of his own creation be considered within the bounds of acceptable morality? What if, one day, a writer woke up to find that the character he had written, of the most perfect girl he could imagine, had come alive and was living, and was madly in love, with him? What would the situation be like?

The film starts off with a wonderful premise, which looks nothing, if not idyllic. Calvin Wier-Fields is a young teen literary prodigy whose first novel HEARTBROKEN OLD TIMES was a critical as well as commercial smash hit, and who is now consulting a therapist about his writers’ block, several years later, unable to come up with a follow-up. Working on an assignment from his therapist, Calvin begins to write about an imaginary girl called Ruby Sparks and slowly starts falling in love with her. Then one day, he wakes up to find Ruby in his kitchen—a walking, talking human being who is the same person as the character he wrote and who, he finds, he can alter however he wishes by just writing more about her on his typewriter, and who has no idea she is a fictional character.

Taking a premise which looks like the wet dream of any guy on the planet, the film turns the concept on its head and turns it into a powerful, deeply disturbing account of the differences between love and the ideal of love. This is mainly the work of writer and star Zoe Kazan, grand-daughter of the legendary Elia Kazan. The film is not just a magic-realist romcom, but a magnificent treatment of the troubled relationship between the creator and the creation. Someone once said that it was impossible to make a film about a writer, because you can’t just show him writing all the time. RUBY SPARKS turns this liability into an asset and beautifully evocates the joy and despair of the creative process.

The film is directed by the husband-wife directorial duo of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, six years after their first film, the 2006 indie stunner LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, one of my personal all-time favorites. Their long hiatus can be forgiven, in light of this wonderful comeback. The film is not the equal of LMS, but neither does it try to be. It is a different kind of film altogether. RUBY SPARKS is nowhere near as funny as LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE was, but it has far more pathos, more depth, and deals with a significantly more complicated topic. It is to the infinite credit of the directors and Kazan, that they prevent anyone in the film from becoming a villain. The use of music, composed by Nick Urata of DeVotchKa (whose film scores I have always been a fan of, from EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED to YOU KILL ME), is exquisite, helping the emotions to build upon themselves.

The acting by the two leads is fantastic. Paul Dano amazes yet again, with his versatility, moving between love-struck idealist to bitter sadist with effortless ease. Zoe Kazan is flawless as the enigmatic but very, very real Ruby, dancing helplessly like a puppet to every literary whim of Calvin.

To try and discuss individual scenes in the film, would be to divulge inevitable spoilers, because in a film like this which can go any which way it wants to, free of any and all movie clichés, the character arc and the direction that the story takes is a major part of the film’s charm. However, there is one scene in this film, near the end, of such mesmerizing power and brutality, that it will knock your socks off.

The film suffers from its lack of time devoted to the other characters apart from the two leads, and leaves Dano and Kazan floating in a sea of one-dimensional extras. Another obvious shortcoming in the film is its lack of humor, which can be very damaging in a romcom. The film is saved by its originality, its insight and the excellent directing and acting.

A delectably fresh film, which works on many levels, and is written and directed with compassion, care and insight, a must-watch for fans of literature and romance films.

7/10.

RASHOMON (1950)

Reviewing a film of this reputation gives me the jitters. But since all critical opinion is subjective, here goes.

A powerful film, this, about the edges of morality and the obsessive need human beings have of being the star of the story, of being in control, never mind the consequences. This is the first Kurosawa film I have seen, and this one made me want to see more. Visually, the film was stark and beautiful. I loved Kurosawa's ability to spread out his actors across both foreground and background, so that often we see more characters on screen simultaneously than we otherwise would. With him, even the close-up is a panoramic shot. The scene of the medium with her windblown clothes flying all around was bewitching in its opulence.

Kurosawa's camera movement across uneven forest floors also stuns me. Was a Steadicam available to him back then? If not, how did he shoot all those scenes of people running down slopes and of all those terrifically realistic swordfights? His camera is dynamic and energetic here and even when still, seems to carry a kinetic power, as if waiting on coiled springs to run loose.

The acting is uniformly good (and in the case of Toshiro Mifune, it is magnificent), except for my usual complaints with the slightly theatrical exaggerated quality of the Japanese acting tradition, but then I cannot complain about a film following its cinematic traditions. The screenplay, with its clashing points of view, has often been acknowledged as one of the most influential of all time, and indeed it works on many levels, exposing unpleasant truths about human psychology.

I could go on and on about the metaphors in the film (how the priest is like the good angel, and the commoner a devil, and the woodcutter a dithering human unsure of his own moral ground and full of hypocrisy and inconsistencies), but that's all been done so many times before, whatever I say is redundant.

The screenplay, although visionary and unique, suffers from the drawback that there is no emotional anchor at its centre. There is no constant frame of reference. While this may add to the film’s edgy appeal, it also prevents the viewer from making an emotional connection with any of the characters. No one remains constant. The character of all the characters change, their loyalties change, their actions are always under suspicion, and as such, we are never sure where we stand in this matter. In scenes like where the bandit approaches the helpless crawling samurai, with a sword in his hand, we were supposed to feel dread and fear, but since we have no idea who these characters really are, our emotional response is stunted. Another drawback was the over-extended soliloquy of the medium. Frankly, I was bored during the poetic description of the moving clouds.

Despite these minor drawbacks, RASHOMON is an excellent film, entertaining, visually and aurally magnificent, poking and prodding around the nether regions of the human psyche. 

8.0/10 for me.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY (2012)

Some directors are so in love with their own visual panache, with the medium of cinema itself, that they are often willing to sacrifice story and character in pursuit of that one amazing shot. Often enough, this turns the film into a boring, pretentious mess. With other directors like Nicolas Winding-Refn (DRIVE), Guy Ritchie (SNATCH) or the director of KTS, Andrew Dominik, this very quality turns what could have been a very, very average film into sublime, mesmerizing entertainment, raising the otherwise commonplace subject matter into high art.

There is nothing new in the plot. Three small-timer wise guys decide to rip off a high-stakes cards game. Things don’t end up too well. If you are familiar with the genre of the gangster movie (in particular THE DEPARTED and RESERVOIR DOGS), very little here will surprise you. Almost everyone dies by the end. But the film is so, so much more than just a story. It is an experience. It has terse, vulgar mercenary conversations (kinda like Jules and Vincent in PULP FICTION, but less weird). It has slow-motion assassination sequences. It has Brad Pitt saying some impossibly cool lines. It has hitmen and enforcers and prostitutes and drug junkies and sawn-off shotguns. It has style.

The film is a collection of wonderful, delectable individual scenes. Here, the tension is built not through elaborate chase scenes or fight sequences, but through jerky, realistic, gritty, sweaty dialogue. Any fighting which happens in the movie is like this---one guy shoots, the other guy dies. End of story. These are real criminals, tough, hard men, whose idea of light conversation relates to the best way to get sodomized in jail (“get yourself a clean older man”). They don’t talk in flowery sentences. They are not smart. They don’t quote the Bible. Ahem ahem. When you watch the film, watch out for a scene where Brad Pitt browbeats a crook into divulging information. He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t use physical violence. His interrogation style is like a juggernaut—unstoppable, ruthless. Another obvious scene is where a major character is assassinated in his car in super slow-motion. We see the bullet leave the barrel, we see it punching through glass and into the guy’s head and we see the poor bastard’s brains splattered all over the car. Brutal, visceral visual magic, a la the elevator head-bashing scene in DRIVE.

The acting in the film is top-notch. Brad Pitt is exquisite as the hard-as-nails common-sense mob enforcer Cogan investigating the robbery. James Gandolfini is my prediction for Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his intense two-scene cameo as hit man New York Mickey. Richard Jenkins as the mob intermediary is also effortlessly good, along with Scoot McNairy as the inexperienced crook who thinks he has morals. The music also deserves special mention. In a film of this style, it had to be good, and it was, going for a country and soul sound, that beautifully clashes with the violent nature of the film, accentuating every seductive flourish of the camera. 

There’s an underlying motif throughout the film about the 2008 U.S.A. Presidential race and Obama’s message of hope and change. I’m not sure what to make of that. Are they comparing Marky’s (Ray Liotta) irresponsibly held, unregulated high-stakes poker game with the free-for-all thievery of the Wall Street brokers before the Great Recession? Are they saying that a soft liberal like Obama is not the ideal candidate to clean this up? When Brad Pitt says, “This guys wants to make me believe we live in a community, don’t make me laugh”, I am not sure what meaning to draw from this. The film works for me even without this metaphor. It will add something to the experience only for those well-acquainted with recent American politics and finance.

To sum it up, KILLING THEM SOFTLY is a glorious, bloody thrill-ride of pure, unadulterated, amoral fun. If you like crime flicks, you’re gonna love it. If you like funky visuals, you’re gonna love it. If you like Brad Pitt, you’re gonna love it. A dialogue-driven crime movie—their breed is rare. But when done well, they can be so delightfully fulfilling.

A hearty 7.5/10 for me.

GANGS OF WASSEYPUR Part I (2012)

The reason why GANGS OF WASSEYPUR will not immediately take its rightful place in the pantheon of Hindi cinema as one of the most daring, visionary, innovative and masterful films that Bollywood has ever produced, is because it is too long (at 2 hours 40 minutes) for kids looking for a fun way to while away a couple of hours, too gory for adults looking for “wholesome family entertainment”, too complex even for movie critics who have to chew their pens all through the film, struggling to come up with catchy phrases to describe the film with, a film whose plot defies explanation, whose characters defy categorization, a film whose very existence proves, without a doubt, that Anurag Kashyap is not only a genius, but a mad, psychotic genius at that.

GANGS OF WASSEYPUR is Anurag Kashyap’s gift to the torrent-crazy cinema buffs of India. This film deserves (and requires) an audience prepared to give it the time and attention it needs, an audience which has gone in for the experience and nothing more, an audience which has gone in without moral inhibitions and an audience which can appreciate Kashyap’s shattering of certain cinematic traditions and embracing of others, which makes the film such a delightful watch.

It would be incongruous, having called the plot too complex to explain, if I tried to do just that (i.e. explain), and indeed the task exceeds my ability. The massive, epic behemoth of a screenplay details the decades-long blood feud between Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpai) and Ramadhir Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia), making detours into the workings of the coal mafia of Dhanbad, train-robbers, badland politics, romance, seduction and infidelity. These detours have been criticized by many critics, calling it the reason why the film is self-indulgent, overlong and needlessly complex. But it is those little moments, not really important in progressing the plot (and in the hands of a more commercial-minded director, would probably have been snipped) but magical in exposition of character, like a slow-mo dream sequence where two people reciprocate their mutual attraction by putting on matching Ray-Bans, or another scene where Sardar and his mates humiliate Ramadhir and his son in a police station, and then gleefully walk into jail as punishment (which jail they later break out of), that give the film much of its charm.

It has to be admitted, perhaps, that the editing scissors may have been sharpened in some places, but there is not much that can be cut off, which would not decrease the overall impact of the film. The film is a gargantuan experience, an epic in the truest sense of the term, an ambitious chronicle of the dusty hinterland of India over the period of six decades. And what’s more, unlike most epics, not for one moment, did I realize how long the film was. It is that rare thing, a gripping epic thriller.

The acting is spectacularly good, whether it be Richa Chadda as Sardar’s long-suffering feisty wife Nagma, Reemma Sen as Durga the seductress, Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Sardar’s Michael Corleone-esque son Faizal Khan, or Piyush Mishra as Sardar’s uncle. But the meatiest two roles in the film, played by Bajpai and Dhulia, are transcendent. Dhulia stuns as the powerful mine owner-to-politician, spitting out expletives with a quiet venomous voice, so that waves of hate seem to emanating from the big screen. And what to say about the erstwhile Mumbai ka Don, Bhiku Mhatre? With one of his most powerful roles in recent times, Manoj Bajpai makes every second of his screen time count, running the gamut of emotions with the ease of a maestro, from lust to rage. His eyes say it all.

The behind-the-scenes departments are phenomenal here. Full marks to Sneha Khanwalkar’s exquisite and innovative soundtrack, with songs like Hunter and Keh Ke Lunga (the movie’s theme song, so to say), which break every tradition in Bollywood music, and complement the visuals beautifully. The production design by Wasiq Khan is also flawless, capturing the colours and textures of India’s Hindi belt from the 1930s to the 80s. The mise en scene is spot on in every frame of the film, from the blood-spattered Kasai mohalla of the Qureshis to the white Ambassador of Ramadhir Singh. Kudos also the exquisite cinematography. Kashyap and his DOP Rajeev Ravi (No Smoking) create a restless roving camera, which swoops up and down and in and out in a delightful array of moves, some of which I have no idea how they did. The opening scene where a house is riddled with bullets and hand grenades, men poking rifles through holes in the doors and firing in every direction, is shocking in the immediacy of the violence. You are not just watching the scene, you are in it.

The film is filled with cinematic homages from a Disco Dancer-era Mithun impersonator to the last scene of the film, which is uncannily similar to the scene from The Godfather where Sonny Corleone gets assassinated. The shadow of The Godfather looms large over this film, many characters fitting the moulds of Vito Corleone, Tom Hagen or Michael Corleone. There is even a blood-thirsty Virgil Sollozzo-type among the multitude of characters in the film. But unlike Sarkar, GANGS OF WASSEYPUR is not a Godfather remake. This is a film unique to India, a story of an Indian town in the lawless badlands. As a cinematic experience, it stands tall beside Coppola’s classic and calls out to be considered an equal.

At last, we have a Bollywood film (and make no mistake, this is a masala potboiler at its very best), that can flick the best of world cinema in the nuts. Now that is as good a reason to see the film as any. Long live the King of Alternative Bollywood, Anurag Kashyap!

A brilliant 9/10 for me.