Imtiaz ji, you can do a little more ji..

I have already said a lot about 'Love, Aaj Kal' on Facebook and thoroughly enjoyed sparring with friends who had very convincing reasons to hate it,but perhaps on account of the extreme reactions it has generated , I want to say more.

The goods-

1. It is an interesting way of attempting a movie which is purely a directorial venture- a love story across time with one common thread of 'how love conquers all in the end' while everything else has changes with time. According to the Director, love in the sepia tinted era was all about the heart while for Gen- X or is it Y coz you cant really place the 'now' in a definite historical context (the cities are too airbrushed, there is no explanation of the Golden Gate beyond it being a dream project for the protagonist who otherwise seems to be utterly incapable of focusing on any given thing at a particular point of time, Deepika's clothes are very Babli meets Priyanka Chopra in Dostana-esque, so as a viewer the 'Aaj' in the movie could be anywhere between the 90s to 2009), love is all about 'being practical'.'Humne kaam karna shuru kiya kyon ki pyaar ...settle hona tha aur tum apene kaam ko lekar itne serious ho ki pyaar ko jaane de rahe ho' mouths the kal ka hero Rishi Kapoor to aaj ka confused jawaan Saif.




2. Saif gives a stupendous performance in this one- I prefer his confused, yet sassy smart- Alec'ish version of 'Jai' in this one to the more popular persona he played in Hum Tum. This one is a lot more real and far less annoying- he has really mastered the uber cool, carefully careless look of the urban, metrosexual male over Kal Ho Na Ho, Hum Tum,Salaam Namaste and now this. (As a compulsve digress er , I must say that my favourite Saif performances ever are Langda Tyagi in Omkara and Dil Chahta Hai) .A gem that I think only he could pull off is Saif asking Rishi Kapoor whos soulfully narrating his love story of yesteryears with a Harleen Kaur, how overwhelmed he was to suddenly see her at a gurudwara most unexpectedly- 'Aapko heart attack aa gaya hoga? aap ke jaise feeling wala aadmi''!!! His role as the young Sardar (Rishi Kapoor in his youth) is a refreshing change and the one that stands out as he competently switiches on screen personas from the modern metrosexual to the muscled, quiet but fuming , lovelorn Sardar struck by love at first sight .




3. Im sorry people- I disagree with all of you who think Deepika is a mannequin who cannot act- I think it is an unfair bias that 'very good looking people' in our culture and (sigh), even filmdom have to deal with often. Ok, she's no Tabu but she holds her own as Meera Pandit- an independent woman in a very new age career (fresco restorer, was it?), who knows her mind (as her boyfriend adeptly remarks through outthe film - 'tum hamesha sahi baat bol deti hai jaaneman',) but takes a while to recognise that Jai is indeed the one made for her, even if she has to wed and bed a few Vikrams(Rahul Khanna, competent but fairly held back- this is his prototype on screen) on the way.. I totally agree with the directort hat there is a certain stillness(maybe serenity) about Deepika which is captivating. It never failsto amuse me that we would all rave about something similar in a Chitrangada Singh, coz shes dusky and earthy, but have very little sympathy for Deepika because she has gorgeous long legs, a pefect yet heartwarming smile and doe eyes. Too much for us lesser mortals to handle , eh?




4. Rishi Kapoor- man, can the man ever go wrong? Clearly the most underrated actor of his generation- he scores again as the amicable, forever in love, restaurant owner/ chef in this one, whos the protagonist of the 'kal' segment of this double love story.




5. The winner for me in this love saga is clearly the clever writing. The pace of the second half is superb, but I think that we could have done with a little more speed in the first half. Imtiaz scores again at what his becoming his specialty- 'the non- love-at-first sight genre'- a common thread for all his films so far, starting with Shaadi se Pehle. Clearly, our Director believes that love does not hit you the first time you meet the right person, bu grows on you, almost creeps up the alley slowly and steadily and you will meet a lot of Mr. Wrongs before figuring out that the one you thought was right for you is indeed your Mr. Right!!




6. Kolkata has rarely looked as good on screen as in this one- the only film from recent times that managed a superior depiction would have to be Mani Ratnam's Yuva. The sepia, the houses with the 'gol' (round) verandahs, the rickshaws, the gullies(alleys) and the banyan clad chaiwallahs all look and feel very real.

The 'not- so goods'-

1. Ok, I don't know of anyone who says stuff like 'pile on' or 'tumhara angle kya hai' . The attempt at penning contemporary lingo looks very contrived and rather unreal- makes an otherwise levelheaded film appear very 'wannabe' and we all know that the mantra to being cool is to 'not try too hard'.




2. The 'break up' party , though a novel concept and I can imagine it might hold an aspirational value for many ,would never end the way it does in the movie. That hug between Jai an Meera would lead to a lot more action and post that night, none would continue with the 'break up' plan, at least not until the long distance relationship fails. Besides, I do think it is an oxymoron of sorts to have laptop, i-phone users of our generation seem so sceptical of a long distance relationship. Come on, we have trancontinental marriages and chemistry on the world wide web even among the 'aam junta/mango people' these days.




3. My personal gratitude to anyone who would help us understand the Golden Gate project which is the goal of our protagonist's life coz the film does not reveal anything on that except that one usually has lattes and sandwiches while working in SF wearing very well tailored suits.




4. Can we get rid of the 'pretty firang women who are easy to manoeuvre into the sack and want to see Delhi and Taj Mahal' stereotype please?




5. Even as a sucker for love, I doubt whether Meera Pandits leave Vikrams for Jai's in real life - at least not till the marriage decays . This realisation , on the day after getting married while sitting on a 500 dollar a sheet kind of bed in a star resort, wearing a designer dress, that your heart actually pines for Jai is too - good- to be true.




6. Baaad music- except for Chor Bazari, the songs are nothing to write home about. This has the worst music among all of Imtiaz's films so far(was it Pritam who did Jab we Met?), though I must applaud him for using Neerak Shridhar of Bombay Vikings fame so well, and Mohit Chauhan seriously needs to take a break from 'the one soulful song a movie' pattern that hes been following ever since-'Tum se hi din...in Jab We met'- classic case of a good idea stretched beyond its goodness.

This is why it work for me by and large though- I believe in love, I believe that we all want to find and live with love, not necessarily die for it and I believe that the loveliest things about love are often the silliest, and the ones that don't make any sense.And I also think that much of this has not changed over the years...

oh, and another thing- the Director is a school senior of mine from Jamshedpur and Im going to be rooting for him all the way!!!

True to my state of utter joblessness, let me end with a completely pointless trivia- did you know that Harleen Kaur, who has apparently taken Bollywood by storm (I don't see why given that she could neither act nor dance) is actually a Brazilian model, Giselle Monteiro?

Rakhi ka Swayamvar..jisme hain Shri Ram bhi aur Luv bhi

What a coincidence- the other day I wrote about Bachelorette and was soon surprised by our own Indian version of the show- 'Rakhi ka Swayamvar'

Obviously, if I were asked to imagine a celebrity that could pull it off and get the maximum number of eyeballs in the process- I hate to admit I would have said Rakhi Sawant coz this is a woman who has made her living out of slapping her boyfriend on TV, breaking up with him on TV, admittng to a boob job on TV,protesting against being kissed by Mika on TV which offended her 'Bharatiya Naari' sensibilities, and to top it all ,lived her life on TV during the BIG BOSS (Indian version of Big Brother and I would say a lot more entertaining) Season 1. Rahul Roy might have survived till the end and got some moolah (which I bet he needed badly), but the winner of that show was unarguably Rakhi Sawant.

'Rakhi ka Swayamvar' has all the usual 'masala ' of a potboiler- there is Rakhi as the shy bride, hoping to fall in love with one in a bunch of really insipid men (yes, we do see an element of India vs Bharat, the resurgence of 'small town India ' here, given the profile of these gentlemen), there is Ram (Ram Kapoor who would have to be the best fed version of the Lord Shri Ram ever to have graced the small screen), Ravi Kisan (the ever entertaining- superb branding exercise there, Ravi ji, as the straight forward , traditional, Hindi speaking man from small town India who has had a meteoric rise in the Bhojpuri film industry and secretly dreams of foot massages by beautiful English speaking nymphets from Mumbai such as a Ms....) , and a bunch of other small screen stars playing Bhabhi, behen, Ba and chchoti behen. I don't quite have a name for Gautami's Gadgil/ Kapoor's character but she could be the modern friend from a different milieu,who has an insight into the changing expectations of the new-Indian woman, that is played by Rakhi...
Oh, and in a masterstroke this Ramayan inspired epic drama gives you Ram and Luv (as in Luv Kush)together- Ram is the presenter and Luv is a promising contender.
Anyway, I do not want this post to be a sociological analysis of the show or the swayamvar. I write this for one reason alone and that is the fact that at a certain level, I find this show deeply disturbing.
Let me say to begin with that I like Rakhi Sawant- I admire her guts and gumption for being a self made woman in an industry where people mostly make a living out of inheriting genes of famous people who bred them, I like it that she has astutely constructed a clever on and off -screen persona of the 'woman victimised by society who's not going to take it lying down anymore'and will play the game by her own rules. A refreshing , endearing change for someone to speak Hindi and broken English ,given that most of our leading men and women are always adding a Latin, Spanish or 'I dont know what exactly' twang to their half baked English and limited expressions in their quest to be hip.
When I saw or heard of Rakhi Sawant before, I thought of her as a loud mouthed brazen woman, with a difficult past and a bitter family history of being duped for money by those closest to her,who spoke her mind perhaps a little too much too often and annoyingly always on camera, maybe suffered verbal diaorrhea, but as a woman who would take no shit.
I was even kind of thrilled that the format of the show gave a woman the right to choose her life partner and not the other way round.
Here's the disappointng shocker though- this Rakhi is not THE Rakhi Swaant that we know, in order to find a husband (even when that seems likea line up for 'Biggest loser jeetega'), she has had to transform herself into the shy, demure, sari clad, non cleavage baring(her trademark before this) Bharatiya naari who looks at her feet when the suitors court her, who mouths dialogues like 'mujhe party nahi, pati chahiye', and repeats 'Main ek Bharatiya naari hoon', mujhe apni maryada maloom hai' half a dozen times in very episode. (and for the record, I would love someone to decode that expression for me)
As if we din't have enough unrealistic role models to live up to as women, as wives, as mothers(sorry, supermoms) and as those who dare to be both those things and still want to work, now we have a celebrity of sorts posing (even if it is only for a show) that she would be happy to give it all up to lead a ghoonghat clad life with some stranger she hardly knows, along the banks of the river Ganga. Sigh!!
On a more optmistic note, this is probably the best performance of her career till date- I hope she gets lots of movies after this one- I suspect the Bhatts and Indra Kumars of the world may already be working at it. Let any leading actress of the day beat Rakhi's stupendous performance as the coy, Indian bride in waiting, blushing when the men compliment her using badly scripted lines(you are like a flower, aapne banaaya hai to chai meethi hi hogi), batting her eyelids coquettishly like a love sick teenager.
Oh, and this show has some pretty good set design, costumes and to use that favourite word in Bollywood(guess, guess)- a 'mindblowing' make up artist for Rakhi Sawant.
Im putting my money on Manas and his 'achche dil waala Dilli ka ladka mannerisms'..and Im sure to follow this up with another post if I lose that bet.

For the uninitiated, here's a little snippet from a recent episode-

Go somewhere else please...'Away we Go' takes you nowhere

I hate to admit that this time THE HUSBAND was right!!! This is a bad, ok correction 'not- so- good' movie and I say this only because I really like Sam Mendes. I like it that hes married to Kate Winslet, I like it that he made American Beauty and floored the Academy and audiences alike with it (not the usual thing to happen!!!), I like it that he made 'Revolutionary Road' before this , which despite being totally disturbing, dark and poignant is a great movie. I identify completely with this oft self defeating quest for a life less ordinary and hence I loved the 'Revolutionary Road' though I secretly dread meeting with an end like the protagonist in it. Now that I have meandered enough to want to reconsider my Blog's title to be 'Cribs and Ramblings', back to 'Away we Go'.
The reviews said everythinggood and in retrospect, most of the things about the reviews were wrong.
"John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph..amazing screen chemistry... most believable couple etc". Sorry, this is a couple whose romance and chemistry lies only in the Director's head coz it certainly doesn't touch the viewer's heart (din't touch mine)
Burt and Verona are a 30 -something couple expecting a child, from Connecticut, trying to decide where they would like to raise their child, and to answer that , take a road trip to different cities like Phoenix, Montreal,Miami, meeting freinds, family, acquaintances, who are all predictably weird. They are looking for a role model - the ideal place, the ideal family and the film does well to end on the note that there is really no such ideal paradigm- we all have to find what works for us, but the fun lies in the journey, not the destination.
This search for perfect place finally takes them back to Verona's family home, a place that houses her treasured memories but a place that she has found hard to revisit ever since her Father passed away in that house.
There is something inherently endearing about the protagonists in the sense that they might have been contented to be drifters in their twenties but are forced to revisit their world view when the stork comes visiting. Our socialization gives us very few options in terms of what the 'right' things to do at various stages in our life are- approaching 30means must have Baby, must settle down. Don't believe me? Ask any married woman whos thirty, married and has not procreated.
Nothing wrong with the premise- seems like a perfectly plausible quest, but here's the thing- the film tries too hard to appeal to the Bohemian sensibility , as if just being someone acceptive of the alternate (whatever that means) should make you laugh and cry with the clearly not so moving saga unfolding on screen.
Moments that work-
When Verona tells Burt that they might be 'fuck -ups' coz they are in their thirties, with no stable place to live in and have a cardboard window...a very real admission indeed and one beautifully portrays how even the uber cool have doubts about their unconventional lifestyle.
Maggie Gyllenhal - this is more than a moment. I would strongly recommend that you watch this movie for her and her alone. Maggie (loved her in Monalisa Smile, Dark Knight) is very much like our own Divya Dutta(Dilli 6, Veer Zaar, Welcome to Sajjanpur)- seldom given a whole movie, but her presence overshadows many a lead actress as she lights up the screen whenever she appears. She is the sole redeeming feature of 'Away we Go', delightfully cast as a post- modern Feminist , known to lesser mortals on campus as the 'Mom without the stroller' and as her character enlightens you , the main problem with America is that 'we are pushing our babies away from us' aka strolling them . Thats a gem. Her house is a 'yoga meets zen meets expensive vintage' with no pieces of furniture that has legs on it..it is indeed a 'continuum space' we are told. There is a hilarious piece with interesting trivia about the sea horse being a progressive liberated mammal because the male of the species actually carries the eggs and gives birth- the female deposits the eggs in the male receptacle. She tops this with her convincing portrayal of a privileged intellectual snob who s actually terrible condesceding towards the margnalised (the remarks about 'Verona's black oral traditions' and the concept of inequity explained by saying 'what do they , meaning Africans know? what do they have'? are absolute masterpieces). I have had the opportunity to have a good laugh at some similar so- called progressive, erudite snobs in India esp. in a certain industry!!!
There is a very touching moment in a pub with a golden couple that Burt and Verona meet in Montreal during their multi- city sojourn. It is the archetype 'golden couple'- in love, with a big family of loving adopted children from various origins with everything going for them , till the garb slips and Melanie Lynskey , who plays the cool woman doing a sexy pole dance thing while covering up her personal tragedy of five miscarriages asks Verona if shes had any trouble so far in her pregnancy . Verona says no and Munch (the character) turns away looking part disappointed and part upset with herself. This is what I like about Mendes- a very deft insight into how misery makes even the good ones among us jealous!!
Finally, though, I would have to admit that the movie disappoints on many counts.
The first and perhaps, the least of its flaws is that it doesnt do much for the road trip genre- the places they visit do not become characters, all the characters including the protagonists remain rather uni- dimensional till the end , and though everyone is grey, there's no harm in painting people in colours apart from black, white or grey, is there, Mr. Mendes?
I hate to say, its not only Verona's 'uterus that is tilted'- the whole vision of this movie is.