Amu - A Review

There are some stories that must be told. Shonali Bose's Amu is one such story. A story set in the backdrop of one of the many gruesome (politically instigated) communal riots that took place in modern India.

New Delhi - November 1-3 1984: Thousands of Sikhs were massacred in a methodical fashion at the behest of the then ruling Congress party leaders and their operatives. To this date, the people behind this pogrom have not been brought to justice. The so called protectors of the people had become the hunters. The riots started abruptly and ended suddenly making it quite evident that they were a part of a controlled massacre backed by the State. If the people were really motivated in conducting these massacres, then there would probably be no Sikh left in New Delhi after those 3 days. Many Hindu and Muslim families provided refuge to their Sikh friends in their houses to protect them from the State operated terrorism.

Amu tells the story of Kajori Roy (played with tremendous grace by Konkona Sensharma) who returns from Los Angeles to New Delhi to find out about her roots. Now we all know that this premise can easily fall in the "third world viewed from the first world lens" category. Instead, Bose's screenplay cleverly avoids these traps and succeeds in taking the viewers on Kajori's self-discovery of her past. This is Shonali Bose's first feature film and that inexperience is evident when she tries to deal with multiple themes in 98 minutes and the narrative falters in certain places. But it's very easy to avoid these shortfalls because her sincerity and earnesty is evident in the entire film. Watching the making of the film, I understand that she had to overcome many obstacles to get this film made. There were political threats, censorship objections and ultimately her producer backed out leaving the film without the backing of any major names. The censor board asked her to edit about 10 minutes of the film to remove any political undercurrents that they thought were objectionable. They even went so far as to give the movie the dreaded "A" certificate on the basis of "exposing the youth to events and themes which should be best forgotten". Such shame!

The events of 1984 have been carefully and meticulously covered up by the Indian Government and it continues to strive to erase them from the memories of its newer generations. They say history needs to be taught so that the newer generation learns from its mistakes and tries not to repeat them. For India's future generations it is very important that these horrific events from the recent history become a part of the curriculum : I say every history book should have a chapter on every single episode of communal violence that has occurred in contemporary India (lofty dreams). For now, I will do with movies like "Amu".

Kaminey - A Review

"Life badi kutti cheez hain", says a character early on in the new Vishal Bharadwaj movie, Kaminey. This theme is the center of many events and sub-plots in this roller coaster ride of a movie. It twists and turns the fates of its characters inside out and upside down and downside up when you least expect them. It screams out loud that good actions and bad actions don't necessarily result in good karma and bad karma...it's more complicated and random than that. We are treated to many vignettes of the swine theme throughout the movie (random mongrels walking into the frame, characters bow-wowing etc.). As if to further prove the point of "Life's a bitch", the movie itself is suffering from collections due to the hit it took with the current swine flu situation in Western Maharashtra, which has caused the theatres to remain closed. Life is indeed a Bitch.

In the olden days when Dharam-paaji was the do-all superhero of Hindi movies, he masticated and spat out two words with tremendous regularity - "Kutte Kaminey"...this movie takes those words along with a generous serving of some saliva and blood and makes a pulpous concoction out of them and presents in a blood soaked, rain soaked, mud soaked fashion to it's audience. Having said that, Kaminey is not an easy to digest dish, it does not believe in spoon feeding it's audience with the characters and their intentions. This might cause much confusion and "yeh kya bakwaas hain" remarks from the casual movie-goer. Note: I am not saying that there is anything wrong with the usual movie-goer, it's just that they are not used to movies which demand active participation (and attention) from the audience to enjoy the proceedings. It demands you to join in the proceedings and experience it as "first-hand" as the medium will allow for it. If you let yourself do that, it promises to leave you all bloody and rain soaked at the end of it (and this I mean in a good way).

"Kaminey" is a director's movie, with the camera merely serving as the eyes through which Vishal conceived the concept - brilliant Tasadduq Hussain - check out the difference in the frames from his work in Omkara and here. The large ensemble cast of mostly unknown actors (save for the lead actors - Shahid Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra) helps in giving the required anonymity to the characters and how they react to the events that unfold. For example: Amole Gupte's Shekhar Bhope could have been played by Nana Patekar (and would have made a great Bhope too), but the audience would have immediately formed a bond with the character and painted Bhope in their own shades. Same with the Tashi character - Danny Denzogpa comes to mind immediately. Aside from the ensemble cast, the real surprises are Shahid Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. Both these actors are in a completely unfamiliar territory and they successfully deliver the goods under Vishal's guidance. Shahid creates two very distinct characters of Charlie and Guddu, through his mannerisms and his eyes - Guddu has kindness in his eyes and Charlie has angry eyes. Priyanka Chopra goes to town with her Marathi Mulagi portrayal of Sweety Bhope. She is spot on in her Marathi dialogues and has managed to leave the glamorous starry aura about her at the coat-check. (I can only imagine what a young Madhuri Dixit would have done with this role - Thanks to A for pointing it out - Madhuri would have been a blast).

About the music, I have already written about in an earlier post. Vishal has a tremendous knack of filming songs in a huge crowd. They do not seem choreographed in a 1-2-3-4 fashion, and have a quality which makes the audience a part of the on-screen rollicking crowd: Just like Beedi from Omkara, Fatak and Raat ke Dhaai Baje here are brilliantly picturised.

The movie is littered with many nods to old Hindi movies and Hollywood movies: some are very obvious, some not so obvious. Sampling:

- The guitar case as an object of everyone's desire: Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi and Desperado

- The finale is reminiscent of True Romance's climax or even Desperado

- The judwaa brothers is an old tried Hindi movie formula

- The dead father is IMO just short of "Mera baap chor hain" (BTW, this is the only bit of the flashback that did not work for me, it was a misfit)

- The use of RD's music : The Great Gambler's "Do lafzon kee hain" and Apna Desh's "Duniya mein logon ko" at strategic places

- Life's a bitch and the overarching dog theme: Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores Perros (Love is a bitch)

There are other subtle nods, which I won't get into here, it's for an avid movie lover to figure them out. Will post them once the movie is out of the cinemas so as not to ruin it for those three people who read this. (For all you know, they might not be intentional on Vishal's part, but then that's what good cinema is all about: you inspire from others and still keep it original, and become a source of inspiration for the next wave.)

Having said that, Kaminey is not all perfect, here are a few things that did not work for me (mentioned about the dead father flashback above):

- The Dhan te nan song was completely unnecessary (but is a knock out composition) and did not do a bit in moving the story forward

- Charlie's end result was very cliche`

- The Charlie and Mikhail relationship was left questionably ambiguous, I think Vishal shied away from portraying them as true "partners" (and yes, the Dhan Te nan song might make more sense if they were "partners")

Without giving the movie away, the climax is the major high point of the movie: it's hard not to compare it with a grand finale of a symphony played by an ensemble orchestra, when all the instruments and musicians come together to a crescendo. One of the most memorable climax sequences in Hindi cinema. Go, get soaked.

This I Believe - The Cleaning Lady

It was a cold March night in Manchester, New Hampshire. I was working through some mundane piece of code trying to get it to work, my head buried deep into the program. The only sound around me was the faint humming of the computers and the HVAC on the 16^th floor of that building which was my first office in the United States. It was the year 2000. It was the first time I was in the office past 7 PM and was determined to get the program working. That’s when I heard faint footsteps behind me. I knew there was nobody in the office at that hour and was a little nervous on realizing a possibility of another human being (hopefully) on the floor at that time – it was about 8:30 PM. I turned back and saw this stocky Hispanic woman of about 30 years walking into a cubicle next to mine and emptying the trash can. She lined the empty trash can with a new plastic bag and moved on to the next cubicle. It was for the first time that I found out who actually kept a clean trash can for me every morning when I walk into the office. She came into my cubicle and reached for the trash can under my desk without even acknowledging that there is a warm body sitting a couple of inches away. Her focus was on the trash can – she emptied the many candy wrappers, a coffee cup, some torn receipts and a half eaten apple. She lined the trash can with a new plastic bag in a mechanical motion which had the kind of efficiency which comes with experience. If she did not acknowledge me, I had the urge to do so, and mumbled a diffident ‘Thank you’ in the general direction of her. She lifted her gaze from the task at hand and gave me a faint smile. I smiled back and buried myself back in the program. She moved on to the next cubicle.

Over the years, I changed cities and offices, graduated from a cubicle to an office of my own, along with growing responsibilities, my contribution to the trash bin also grew. I started spending more and more of my evenings sitting in my office. Stress levels rose, and so did the coffee intake and the empty coffee cups. It will be ten years since that chance encounter in Manchester in March 2010. I imagine the amount of junk I created each and every workday (and some weekends). It would have probably filled up a football field if it wasn’t for the cleaning lady who cared to empty it every night without fail. It’s this vast silent army of cleaners and janitors which make the civilized world a livable place for those of us who produce trash in copious amounts. In a society where over consumption, excess and non-re-usability is the norm, it takes a lot of work from a lot of people to dispose off this junk to make room for more. It is quite a thankless job – they show up at times when the “creators” of the very trash they are removing, aren’t around. So it’s obvious for the ones who create it, to think that the trash disappears magically and the receptacle is clean and ready for them to pile it up with more junk.

I am not trying portray them as saints, and we, who create trash as devils - we are each doing our bit in this world. However, in most cases we get our due recognition and acknowledgement for the jobs we do, and we forget to pass it on to these individuals who work behind the scenes so that we can do our jobs efficiently. Hence, I believe it’s an ennobling thing that these individuals do on a daily basis for a menial amount of money and no recognition. We as a society will always want someone to pick up after us; we need them more than we need traffic lights, social networking websites or sliced bread. Since that evening in Manchester, I make it a point to thank each and every one of the cleaners or janitors whenever I run into them. Most of the times, I get surprised looks from them, some times I see a faint appreciation in their faint smiles (or it could be my imagination). Regardless, what I want to convey to them is that if it wasn’t for them, the entire world would be a big stinking trash can. Thank your cleaning person, thank them with all the sincerity and the respect they deserve. This I believe.