#BoycottHaider

Like dipping your feet in the shallow end and taking the temperature of the water, the first viewing of Haider is simply meant to take all the Shakespeare out of your system. The second viewing, in the wake of an unfounded wave of nationalist protests demanding to #boycottHaider, gets a whole new meaning.

The film begins with a doctor, fulfilling his duty towards humanity by operating a militant just like any other patient, being ratted out and detained for being an accomplice. His house is set on fire, and his wife is a mute spectator as he is taken away by the authorities, only to disappear later. The sequence that precedes this one, is of the doctor leaving home holding an identity card and joining a line of hundreds of locals that walk, under supervision of armed guards, to part-take in a drill to identify the accomplice. The only time we have seen such a visual is when films are portraying the anti-Semitic regime rounding up the Jews in Nazi Germany. And no, we did not expect something of that nature to happen to citizens of our nation.

The doctor is Haider’s father. He returns to his village and is detained for referring to his home town by its alternate name – Islamabad. His girlfriend comes to his aid, rescues him and drives him home. On their way, she explains how she negotiated with the officer and describes Haider as “woh militant nahi, poet hai…” This line is a part of a large dialogue and comes and goes like a silent whisper. But, thereon, it echoes throughout the film. She means to say that Haider does not pose any danger as he is only a poet. The question to be asked is, could Vishal Bhardwaj have elucidated it more elaborately that when tortured, a poet can be far more lethal and dangerous than a militant. Haider himself knows, from having researched on the revolutionary poets of British India – be it Bismil or Faiz, that the poets were the most dangerous minds of that era. If only it were that simple for us to comprehend.

After learning that his father was taken into custody by the army before he disappeared, Haider makes it his life’s mission to find his father no matter which prison he is held captive in. And in a conversation with the two Salmans, he casually remarks that “poora Kashmir ek qaidkhaana hai.” Nobody is free here. A scene with a befuddled Kashmiri standing outside his own house, unwilling to enter without being frisked, further emphasises Haider’s remark. He speaks of how the AFSPA, a tool to facilitate the safeguarding of the people had turned on them, with the army abducting the smallest of suspects dumping them into our lite-versions of Guantanamo Bay and torturing them. Chutzpah, a Hebrew word, illustrates the politics of double standards and highlights how the Kashmiris have been left hanging between a hard place and a harder place.

“The nationalists having a problem with the film’s portrayal of the armed forces is justified,” is something someone who hasn’t watched the movie would say. In a region of perennial unrest since 1948, vengeance has been the emotion that is as common as snow in its winter. The oppressed take up arms for freedom, and the two oppressors, as it were, have arms for the sake of safety and counter attack. There are militants and armies of two nations fighting in Kashmir since the birth of the nations. On ground zero, it stops being a political issue. A father disappears, a mother is raped – a child picks up a gun. Similarly with the army, the law and order aside, if a man who you share a bunker with, who wears the same uniform do, who is the only friend you made since your posting in Kashmir from some other part of India is killed – the first thing on your mind will not be mother nation and national pride, it will be revenge for a fallen brother. And Haider’s fault is that it shows it. The commanding officer who orders the RPG strike on the doctor’s house mouths “no militant dead or alive is worth the life of my soldier.” Nowhere does he say “kill that terrorist for ruining the peace in my beautiful country.”

Haider, disillusioned by all this and more, loses his mind, and so do we. With every passing scene, the film makes you uncomfortable as you find all this is happening too close to home. The gunshots fired in Kashmir can now be heard from your bedroom window. You don’t like it. You regress into thinking that the film is about Shakespeare’s Hamlet. You want to re-focus your mind to thinking about how this is a story about one man’s revenge. How this is about a story about family, deceit and bringing peace to the dead one. How it’s about a son and his overly attached mother coming to terms with life without the father. But Haider doesn’t let you do that. It feeds you a large spoonful of Shakespearean tragedy and before you gulp it down, stuffs into your mouth another spoonful of a national issue which has either been neglected or portrayed trivially even in the finest of our films (read Roja).

And that is Haider’s fault. It is the film’s fault that you cannot separate Hamlet from Kashmir anymore. It is the film’s fault that it tries to show “Jhelum laal laal hua” to a people who have convinced themselves that “aaj blue hai paani paani” and, it is the film’s fault that the people are who blinded by the “sunny sunny sunny din” completely overlook Faiz’ “laajim hai ke hum bhi dekhein, woh din ke jiska waada tha…”

Whether bad films create bad audience or whether bad films are created because there is bad audience is an endless conundrum. But one thing is for sure, we are a bad audience. We do not like politics in politics alone, how could we be okay with it showing up in our films. Nowhere in our collective idea of entertainment does an honest political drama have a place. Therefore it is necessary to #boycotthaider

The song 'Bismil', which was a revelation in the second viewing, when taken out of context of the plot of the film, has a hidden message - a plea. The people of Kashmir in particular and the people of India in general, are the bulbul-e-bismil, who are innocent and naïve. The gul refers to our first Prime Minister and “khushboo-e-gul mein ishq bharaa tha” refer to the promises that were made to J&K by the government of India – promises that weren’t quite fulfilled. So on and so forth.  “Khushboo-e-gul mein zeher bhara hai” is the warning and the final plea to the people is to come to their senses and see what is happening, which the film so eloquently showcases. Hosh mein aaja, hosh mein aaja, ae bulbul-e-bismil.

Firing Blanks

Film: Bang Bang
Director: Siddharth Anand

Siddharth Anand’s Bang Bang is apparently an official remake of Knight & Day. Pause.

In comparison, it is terribly under-funded and has watered down the plot further for Indian audience. Pause.

Katrina Kaif. Pause.

Hritik Roshan, in his close-ups, makes that face all guys make while playing video games while his body double and or poorly executed special effects do the work for him. Pause.

Danny Denzogpa is the antagonist. And everytime he is on screen you keep thinking why they couldn’t get him for Agneepath. Pause.

You could have stopped reading this after the first pause. Or before that. Pause.

If you want to read further you will be disappointed because factoring in the 150 odd minutes it requires to watch the film, spending any more time over it would make it difficult to look at yourself in the mirror. Period. 

Rating: 7 bananas out of 5 stars

Transcending Shakespeare

Film: Haider
Director: Vishal Bhardwaj

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity suggests that time is relative; contrary to the common understanding that time follows a strict linear path – the one we confine it to for the sake of functionality on a day to day basis. But after Maqbool, Omkara and now Haider, Vishal Bhardwaj has proved that he collaborated with this one guy called William Shakespeare, who was born roughly half a millennium before him.

Haider is unrelenting - not the character, the film. Its honesty and courage are only surpassed by its aesthetics. It leaves you dumbfounded with its treatment, overwhelmed by its subject and makes you fall in love, with a story you have loved since the first time you heard it, all over again. It is brave, flambuoyant and intricate, just like its director.

Much has been spoken about Bhardwaj’s karmic connection with Gulzar with every single time they work together. But when it comes to the people he works frequently with, Shakespeare is a close second. With Maqbool which was an adaptation of Macbeth, Omkara which was based on Othello and now Haider based on Hamlet, the director’s appreciation of human history’s most inspiring literary works is absolutely fascinating. Like his previous two adaptations, Haider, which completes the trilogy, too, showcases Bhardwaj’s ability to take Shakespeare’s idiom and internalize it in a setting so rooted that the line between the text and the film becomes imaginary.

Which gets us to Kashmir, where the film is set beginning it’s tale in the year 1995. Haider, a university student returns home from Aligarh after his father has disappeared after being framed for working with militants. On his return, he finds that his mother is too close to his uncle for his liking. He decides to search for his missing father along with many disgruntled Kashmiris, who are looking in vain too. He then finds out that his father has been murdered and pledges vengeance. Well, you know how it goes.

However, where Bhardwaj triumphs, is in presenting an agonizing saga of the lives of many who existed for many Indians only in news bites. The film touches upon the political dynamics, gives a holistic view on the role of armed forces in the region, enlightens you with the causal need for and the horrific consequences of AFSPA 1958 (Armed Forces Special Powers Act), provides various perspectives on the Kashmiri people’s perception of nationhood, freedom, oppression and it does so while, on the surface, playing out a Shakespearean tragedy.

Kashmir’s contribution to Haider is not limited to its socio-political unrest, but it also provides as an excellent setting. The damp, wet winter and the dead-white snow painted with blood tells the story of how things have gone wrong in what was once referred to as the heaven on earth. At the same time, the same setting provides a cool, cozy hideout for Haider and his lover Arshia and show that there is still warmth in the cold wreckage and a little hope in the heart.

It is often said that literature constitutes a large part of cinematic story-telling and contributes a lot to cinema. However, Haider’s dialogues and lyrics are so meaningfully crafted and precisely executed that they could be a great piece of literature by themselves. Gulzar’s “Aao Na”, Vishal Bhardwaj’s “dil ki gar sunoon to hai dimaag ki to hai nahi jaan loon ke jaan doon main rahoon ke main nahi” (on Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be”) and Faiz’ “Gulon mein rang bhare” (which you can hear playing on a transistor in the voice of Mehdi Hassan) make you feel immense gratitude towards your ancestors who thought language would be a good idea.

Amidst this intense drama, Bhardwaj reserves his moments to, in some way, leave a director’s watermark on the film. Right from a subtle reference like Khurram (Haider’s uncle) saying “370 saal se guzaarish kar rahe hain…” to Ghazala (Haider’s mother) to (there couldn’t be a better way to explain this) trolling Salman Khan, he throws punches at you which hit you only if you are in its path.

Of the many departments of the film that deserve individual standing ovations, casting is one. From the extras of little significance to the protagonist, Haider is one of the few Hindi films that get it flawlessly right. Tabu has given one of her finest performances as Ghazala, portraying her with immense vulnerability. Kay Kay Menon as Khurram is tenacious and comes close to having the same effect as his character in Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal. Shraddha Kapoor’s Arshia exceeds expectations with her heavy emphasis on some English words, but beyond that, she fails to make the most of a golden opportunity.

Shahid Kapoor, on the other hand, is not the Shahid Kapoor we have seen for a decade or more now. He slides into his character and gets comfortable over the first half of the film and as the second half warms up, he takes center-stage and owns it. His disturbed tirade at a square in the city, his description of ‘Chutzpah’ (a word, if you have not heard before, that will change your perspective on things a little) and his “mai rahoon ke mai nahi” monologue are examples of how you get it right. His dialogues, postures, gestures will leave you with some unforgettable images.

In its entirety, Haider has crossed many a boundaries to become something big and powerful. It is bigger than the characters’ tragedy, it is bigger than the condition in Kashmir, and if you can fathom it, it takes Hamlet’s central theme of vengeance and goes beyond it. Haider humbly transcends Shakespeare and stands before us as a cultural mammoth that will be remembered for many years.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Three weddings and four funerals

Film: Finding Fanny

Director: Homi Adajania

It is said that a film can change your day, your mind or your life; and Homi Adajania’s Finding Fanny is a strange little tale that, if nothing else, will make your day. The director’s third, this film unfolds comfortably around you and makes you live its story while it is happening to its characters.

The film opens with a first person narration by Angie (Deepika Padukone) who leads us into a quiet village called Pocolim in Goa, where Ferdinand Pinto (the post-master of that village, played by Naseeruddin Shah) receives a letter he had sent 46 years ago – a letter expressing his love for Stephanie ‘Fanny’ Fernandes. For those of among you who are immune to irony, read the previous statement again.

Pocolim is a small village, and as Savio da Gama (Arjun Kapoor) promptly states in a scene, “Here, everyone’s business is everyone else’s business.” Angie is a widow, having lost her husband Gabo (played sportingly by Ranveer Singh who lights up his 15 seconds on screen with as much joie-de-vivre as he does in that Ranveer Ching song) on their wedding day. Oh, let it be mentioned that he dies due to choking on the figurines atop the wedding cake. If the irony in the film was not clear to you with the postmaster’s mail not being delivered, here’s your second chance.

                                     

Angie’s mother-in-law, Rosalina ‘Rosie’ Eucharistica (Dimple Kapadia) is a woman of repute and a control freak. Now, add to this mix a renowned painter (Dom Pedro played by Pankaj Kapur) with a fetish for big women, and you have a melting pot of quirkiness.

Here’s a legend to help you link the five characters quickly. Angie, a widow, wants to help Ferdinand find Fanny, using Dom Pedro’s car, which he bought from Savio. She convinces Dom Pedro to lend the car by allowing him to spend some more time with his muse and her mother-in-law – Rosie. And since none of this sorry lot can drive a car, Savio, Angie’s old flame, is compelled to do so. Also in the car - Rosie’s cat.

There you have it, an unlikely group on an unlikely mission to find love. The only thing common between all of them is longing and the quintessential need for love. The outcome of this crazy road trip is quite predictable, however, this predictability does not stem out of you having out-witted the writer and the maker, but instead out of hope. The film does to the characters what you wish to be done unto them.

The humor of Finding Fanny is its situations, more than its words, which means irrespective of whether you watch it in Hindi or English, you will have laughed at the same instances. Most of this aforementioned humor is embedded in irony and unless you watch closely, you may miss out on certain jokes that have been painstakingly constructed within the narrative. However, it must be said that the writers have caught the right vein in writing the dialogues for the English version of the film. “Waiting for Christmas or what?”, “Why means what?”, “I think there’s a robber outside!”, are the dialogues that seem like a part of the setting. One simply cannot pull off writing Hindi dialogues for a Goan character without ridiculing the Goan or Hindi or both.

The setting plays a very important role in the story. First and foremost, these characters could not exist outside the realm of Goa – the perfect blend of eccentric, compassionate, loving, comical, simple-minded and otherwise content folk. Secondly, it sets up a great backdrop for a journey, especially those where you end up finding something completely different than what you set out to look for. To top it off, Anil Mehta’s camera has managed to capture some splendid landscapes of a vintage car easing through the twirls and swirls of exotic locations.

The ensemble cast further outline the caricatures of their characters. Naseeruddin Shah is underwhelming, albeit sweet, as Ferdinand. Pankaj Kapur as Dom Pedro is sincere and does no more than is asked. As for Dimple Kapadia, this is perhaps one of her career best performances and emphatically stands out among the group. Arjun Kapoor as a disgruntled lover is bearable but can do much better. And Deepika, whose character is a personification of The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love, is simply adorable.

You love the characters, care for them and you feel the same way about life as they do. And somewhere in the first half hour, the story doesn’t matter anymore. You simply take a seat in the car with and try to find Fanny. Aren’t all our lives simply a search for the proverbial Fanny? (Pun intended, totally. Just like in the title.) A gamble, a venture in the dark, a chance…all of it built on hope. And amidsty its three weddings and four funerals, if there is one thing Finding Fanny does, is tell you that you are not alone in your search, it is with you.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Punching thin air

Film: Mary Kom

Director: Omung Kumar

If you walk into this Omung Kumar film with the expectation of being blown away by India’s most celebrated south-paw, you are in for a surprise. You do get punched after watching Mary Kom, however, it is not by of the inspiring story of MC Mary Kom, but by a glove filled with melodrama, unnecessary sympathy, in-your-face patriotism, untimely product placements and what feels like a bag of loose change.

The film begins with a little girl picking up a boxing glove from a wreckage and ends with her winning the world championship for the fourth time; between which, she faces opposition from within the community, fights corruption from within the association and all that comes with being an athlete, and a woman at that. The film journey’s through her life as the eldest daughter of a rice farmer to a national champion to being a wife, a mother and a world champion.

Frankly, there couldn’t be a better story to tell, and the failure here lies with the storytellers who simply glance through the important milestones and stitch those moments with melodramatic overtones. The screenplay is haphazardly strung together and there are moments in the second half where you are left disinterested as Mary oscillates between training and looking after her children.

The supporting elements to the narrative too fail to integrate and bind it into one compound and there are always little shots of melodrama to distract you from thinking how a lot of issues are being omitted. Right from the trivialization of the rebellion in Manipur to a caricatured portrayal of corruption in the system, the film overlooks many a fundamental problems. Be it the long scene where Mary is made to apologise for her outburst to the federation or the causal outburst where she, with no prior hints at the issue starts screaming that the federation is being prejudiced against her for being a Manipuri.

That apart, comparison to other boxing films would come automatically; however, that only weakens the case for Mary Kom. The moment you start thinking Million Dollar Baby or Raging Bull or Rocky (if you are into that), you realise how poorly shot it is. The scene where she picks a fight with a boy, or the montages of her training just highlight how uninspired and non-committal the film is.

There was a huge outcry about Priyanka Chopra playing the lead in the film, but after having watched the film, that criticism can finally be validated. Priyanka as Mary Kom is as poor a casting as it would be to cast Mary Kom to play Priyanka Chopra in a biopic about her life. It is the equivalent of Zack Galifianakis portraying the Mahatma in Attenborough’s Gandhi. The other characters in the film are too uni-dimensional, be it the no-nonsense coach, the skeptical father, the supportive husband, the spiteful federation representative and the fierce German nemesis.

The mushy background score, the perennially weepy protagonist and the patronizing story make for a tableau of sympathy-seeking story, which makes the treatment of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag seem neo-real. It is high time we stopped spoon-feeding emotions to our audience and leave it to them to appreciate the beauty of a life well lived. Mary Kom the person, Mary Kom the persona, and Mary Kom the phenomenon, are all let down. We are sorry magnificent Mary, we owe you a film.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5