Bombay Talkies - Review

The movie begins with a young man pushing his father against a wall and angrily declaring that he is a homosexual and not a eunuch. From that moment on, you know that this isn't going to be your regular Hindi movie. The anthology of four short films by Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap and Zoya Akhtar is a celebration of 100 years of Indian cinema. But this is no vacuous song-and-dance party. It's an evocative essay on our love affair with the movies.

The four shorts in Bombay Talkies depict the degree to which movies permeate our lives; how a film song becomes a melancholy lament for a life half-lived; how stars consume us and fill us with magic.

The strongest film is Dibakar's adaptation of a short story by Satyajit Ray. Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays a failed actor who strays into a film shoot. Dibakar narrates his story with such tenderness and Siddiqui is so good that by the end, I was wiping away tears. Karan Johar also steps out of his comfort zone, with a brave, quietly heartbreaking story about a couple and the exuberant gay man who enters their lives. The actors, Randeep Hooda, Saqib Saleem and especially Rani Mukerji, are terrific. Post-interval, Bombay Talkies drops a few notches. The shorts by Zoya and Anurag don't have the same complexity. Anurag's lead actor, Vineet Kumar, is very good, but the story feels stretched. It's interesting to see what Zoya does with a little boy whose most ardent desire is to be Sheila from 'Sheila ki jawani'. Usually a child dancing to an item song is deeply uncomfortable, but here it becomes an anthem for joy and freedom.

Bombay Talkies ends with its own item song, which brings together a roster of stars. The song is distinctly forgettable. And yet, I enjoyed it. Because it ends the film on a necessary note of celebration. And because, truthfully, I'm a sucker for stars. Bombay Talkies is a unique experiment that works very well. The collaboration between four leading directors suggests a confidence that was rare in the industry even a decade ago. I believe that things can only get better from here on.

India’s ‘bad man’ Pran to get Dadasaheb Phalke award

MUMBAI:  Bollywood’s most famous villain Pran will receive the highest award in Indian cinema, the government announced on Friday, in a rare honour for an actor whose career spanned over 300 films in the second half of the 20th century.
Pran Krishan Sikand, 93, known to moviegoing audiences just by his first name, is the 2012 recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke award, instituted in the name of the man who made India’s first feature film a century ago.
Pran was easily Bollywood’s first-choice villain from the 1950s to the 1980s, although he successfully broke that mould to prove himself equally adept at comedy and drama. He played a hapless father who turns to crime in “Amar Akbar Anthony” (1977) and the affable gangster in “Zanjeer” (1973).
“His impressive performances have bestowed an entirely unique new dimension to the negative and character roles in Hindi cinema,” the ministry of information and broadcasting said in a statement.
Pran, who lives in Mumbai and has been ailing for some months, may not be able to attend the awards ceremony.
“He watched all the news bulletins and he was very happy. He knows it’s a big honour,” the actor’s daughter Pinky Bhalla said. “The whole world has been calling.”
Pran made his Bollywood debut in 1948 in “Ziddi”, acting alongside evergreen hero Dev Anand. In the ensuing decades, his body of work would come to include some of the Indian movie industry’s most famous films.
Such was the dread his name evoked during his heydays as a movie villain that ‘Pran’ is said to have fallen out of favour as a baby name.

Setting the Story "Kahani"

A still from Kahaani (2012)

For Bollywood certain details like the background of some characters or the city they belong to isn’t important beyond a point. The only time the location gets some importance is when it’s a part of the title like Howrah Bridge (1958), An Evening in Paris (1967) or Love in Tokyo (1966). When that’s not the case, Bombay is automatically assumed to be the location for most Hindi films irrespective of the genre or the period and when the going gets boring, Bollywood travels out of Bombay to set a story – Delhi 6 (2009), Love in Tokyo, Johar Mehmood in Hong Kong (1971), Ab Dilli Door Nahin (1957).
For Bollywood sometimes the simple act of specifying the story’s non-Bombay location ends up being the difference between a regular film and a good one. Imagine films like Kabul Express (2006), Manorama Six Feet Under (2007), Dev D (2009), Paan Singh Tomar (2012), or Kahaani (2012) and the first thing that strikes you is just how intricately the location of the film was woven into its plot. The unapologetic ravines of Chambal and the harshness of a war torn Afghanistan are as important to Paan Singh Tomar and Kabul Express as the leading characters. Kahaani takes places during the run-up to Durga Puja, a time when Kolkata truly comes alive and that fervor runs parallel to the main story. Kahaani’s plot of Vidya Bagchi’s (Vidya Balan) relentless search for her missing husband, a computer analyst, seems to have found its ideal setting in a city where a lot of the past is lost. Interestingly much like her search for a loved one Kahaani’s visual narrative is manic enough to mirror the sentiment. Be it the locations, the people on the streets, the iconic symbolism in the form of tram, traffic jams, Metro, hand-pulled rickshaws, Kumartuli craftsmen making clay idols, luchi and chai on the streets Kahaani’s cinematography (Sethu) and production design (Kaushik Das, Subrata Barik) manages to capture the passion of Kolkata. What also works in the film’s favor as far as depicting Kolkata goes is the use of resident actors who get the local enunciation, something that ‘Bollywood’ repeatedly takes for granted bang on.
Bollywood might Bombay in its films right from titles like Bombay to Goa and Bombay 405, Bombay Boys, and songs like Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan (CID, 1956) or Yeh Bombay Sehar Haadson Ka Sehar (Haadsaa, 1983) but ironically it’s Kolkata that is the old favorite of filmmakers. The Calcutta connection between some of the most iconic Indian films like Do Bhiga Zameen (1953), Devdas (1955), Pyaasa (1957) and Howrah Bridge (1958), Kabuliwala (1961), Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962) and 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) only shows just how much cinema loved that city.
A few years ago it was Mani Ratnam’s Yuva (2004) that used students politics in modern day Kolkata as it’s setting but Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta (2005) is what truly rekindled the city as a location in Hindi cinema after eons. A period film, Parineeta went overboard to portray its Bengali flavor and unlike Kahaani it never really used the imagery of Calcutta as a true character in its storytelling. As a Bengali himself, Ghosh could have been naturally inclined to go over the top but somewhere his attitude of taking ‘‘Kolkata for granted” enabled him to use the right amount of familiarity with the city in order to portray it as a character. Chinatown (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Casablanca (1942) – some films are forever associated with their locations and Kahaani joins Roland Joffe’s City of Joy (1992) and Mira Nair’s The Namesake (2006) amongst the other loved Indian films that will be connected with Kolkata for a long time.
Frequently overlooked in the light of performances, writing and other aspects of filmmaking, the setting of the story adds a silent albeit a very powerful dimension. Imagine if BR Chopra has shot Naya Daur (1957) in a studio rather than the real location that was used…the film wouldn’t have been half as powerful. The impact of any location on a film can be gauged from Sholay’s (1975) Ramgarh and Champaner in Lagaan (2001). A fusion of many Indian villages, both Rangarh and Champaner might be figments of their writers mind but they are as real as Sydney from Dil Chata Hai (2001) or the dark Mumbai underbelly from Satya (1998) or Company (2002).
Every time Bollywood gives the locations of its stories something more than just a passing thought, the films turned out better. The spaces we occupy end up having a major influence on our lives and if our films claim to be about people like you and I, then its high time Bollywood thought of locations as something more than incidental.

Rare Wedding Pictures