The Past - A thought provoking, whirlwind of complex emotions

It’s a movie that haunts. It is an unsettling drama that claims you and there is no way you can get done with it. The more you try to make peace with it the more it lurks. Yes, that’s the effect this movie will have on you.  If you are looking for answers, watch out!! All that this movie has to offer is questions and that’s where its beauty lies.

It chokes and makes you see the grey in life; it brings you face to face with characters that are essentially good. It’s a story about three people who are failed by their good intentions.

Failed marriage, illicit relationship, parenting, hidden motives and the desperate need to seek happiness is the edifice on which Ashgar Farhidi models The Past. It’s not at all strange to see how each character in the movie is linked with the other and how difficult it’s for them to break the ties that are already broken. Each character has their own story and reasons and each one of them is noble in their depravity.

Movie opens with Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) the estranged husband to Marie who heads back to Paris to settle his past. Marie (Bérénice Bejo) survivor of two failed marriages and a mother of two daughters, she yearns for a divorce to get settled with her new boyfriend and then there is Samir (Tahar Rahim) Marie’s boyfriend.

Of all the three, Samir is the one whose life is fucked the most. Left with a son and a comatose wife, he has the ugly reality of his wife’s fouled up suicide attempt to deal with.

 Ahmad comes to Paris in the search for closure. His desire to get divorced with Marie and end everything on a happy note is thwarted when he is dragged in Marie’s present life. There is an unfinished business between the two. Ahmad left Marie 4 years ago and has to pay off by dealing with her boyfriend’s son (Faud) and council her elder daughter (Lucie) to accommodate Samir in their life. Lucie like every other daughter wants her mother to be happy. She is tired of her mother’s fleeting romances and is unable to understand why men in her mother’s life don’t stay. Lucie has a secret that alters her mother’s chances of happiness and it’s her secret that shifts the story and leads us to the end.

But, like I said, Ashagar Faridi doesn’t offer you any answers. The way he twists the truth in each character’s hand and how it leads to the wrong beginnings is an act of marvel. Ashgar Faridi doesn’t corrupt the movie with grandiose instead he keeps it real without any music and minimum props. He makes his characters speak more with the expressions and less with dialogues. Every frame in which Bérénice Bejo is caught up with speaks volumes. Her bottled up frustration, helplessness and her anger is witnessed in her expressions. He does an excellent job in making us stay with her in witnessing her wretchedness. The scene where she waits on the road and asks Lucie to come back home will make you one with her emotions. He is a ruthless director who makes us witness intense suffering and the only antidote he offers is that he makes it easy for us to empathize with the characters.

He throws these hints at the reader and asks the audience to form a reality with it. He lets us gauge the relationship between Marie and Ahmad when she spits bitterness towards Ahmad, “When you play the good guy and try to teach us something, I really hate you.”

We know Marie isn’t able to let go of Ahmad when Lucie breaks it to Ahmad, “Do you know why she fell in love with that jerk? Because he looked like you”. We know Faud doesn’t hate Marie when he asks Samir why he can’t stay at Marie’s place.

 We know as much as Samir despises his wife for committing suicide and jeopardizing his life, he isn’t thoughtlessly selfish and does care for her when he asks her, “Squeeze my hand if you feel anything, Celine”. The closing shot is one of the best shot scenes and reveals a lot about the dilemma and human emotions.

The past neither instructs nor delights instead it blurs the line where it is difficult to separate the past from the present. A thought-provoking, whirlwind of complex emotions, it’s a saga of uncertainty and failed attempts to seek happiness.

Jaoon Kahan Bata Ae Dil is truly Love Fucked

Love-fucked is the English title of the movie Jaoon Kahan Bata ae Dil. It's an apt title, however, 'Perils of being in a relationship with a douche-bag' would have been nice too. A crime patrol episode on toxic relationship had disturbed me enough and while discussing it with a friend he suggested me to watch Jaoon Kahan. He said 'watch it, it still has some hope'.

The way the movie begins, where you see Khushboo Upadhyay checking her hair and gajra, rushing to meet her boyfriend on the bus reminded me of Mumbai as depicted in late 70s Bollywood romance like Rajnigandha and Choti si baat.  Jaaon Kahan is the polar opposite of those Amol Palekar and Vidhya Sinha movies. It is an ugly spectacle of sick, toxic relationship. The first scene between Khushboo Upadhyay and Ajit kokate sets the tone of the movie.

The way he tells her that he will decide when he needs to get angry on her suggests it's an unequal relationship. The way he talks to her it feels like he is a shitload of negativity. Nihilism and narcissism combined with a dash of arrogance is this guy (Khushboo Upadhyay's) 'Jaan' in the movie. A pseudo intellectual who seems to have progressive views but his actions are rotten and filled with misogyny. Someone should give all the awards to Ajit Kokate for portraying this character with utmost ruthlessness that makes one want to despise him with all the might. 

The interesting part of the movie is that the couple rarely address each other with their names. He calls her pagli and she calls him jaan and the only name that gets spoken about is of Sunita, Khushboo's roomie.   

Aadish Keluskar chooses the right setting, the long walk on the Marine drive and scorching heat that intensifies the mercurial aspect of the couple's relationship and Ajit Kokate's views on life, politics, marriage, infidelity and love. He has an eye for finding faults in everything. The scorching heat, long walk and conversations in the Kali pili and in the cafe show that he is just projecting his views on her. His views on khushboo's flatmate Sunita's breakup also shows how eager he is to judge others. One may hate him for his acerbic tongue and negative thoughts but he does make sense at some places, especially where he is talking about politics. The movie has Bollywood movies reference in the background and a constant preoccupation with cinema. Reference like Salman Khan could be nice and Aamir khan could be selfish, how movies don't portray the real sex and how porn has become an addiction; the impermissible topics that are not depicted in Hindi cinema get talked about with brutal honesty. 

His equation with Khushboo is nothing but a need base, pernicious equation. He doesn't miss a single instance to belittle and shame her, he finds her stable job boring and considers marriage as a sham that comes with a risk of infidelity. He compares her to heroine's sister in a B grade movie. The more he insults her, the more determined she seems to be in gaining his affection. The way he treats her in front of the cab driver, in the cafe, in the movie hall is a testament of an unhealthy relationship that is solely governed by the wishes of one person, the other is just there to oblige. The close up shot of Ajit Kokte on Juhu beach where Khushboo tells him, he is jealous of her stable life and where she shows him the mirror is a phenomenal shot.  Even when she agrees to go to the lodge with him he tries to keep an upper hand by saying she is not doing him a favour by satisfying his sexual needs. He tells her he is tolerating her because he loves her.   His expressions and how he manipulates her later by threatening to leave her gives an insight in his character. Khushboo is her vulnerable best in this scene. 

From gaslighting to verbal abuse to physical abuse, this movie covers the entire realm of what makes for an ugly relationship. The scenes in the lodge are vomitous and exasperating, the ugliness and toxicity reach at its peak when he hits her and continues to fuck her. Towards the end, the lines between the good and the bad get blurred. 

The scene in the end where Khushboo asks him laugh while she takes video of him and slaps him is the only time where her character gets her due and her final dialogue towards the end is savage best 'Film ho ya life, end toh honi hai'. All her bottled emotions, her anguish, humiliation find an outlet in the end where she dances to forget her sorrows. Khushboo is amazing in the movie as a malleable girl who yearns for the affection of a man who has nothing to offer her except for abuses and pain. 

Like Celeste in the Big Little Lies, Khushboo manages to end the toxic relationship. I hope no woman sees her past, present or future in this movie. Jaoon Kahan is excruciatingly painful to watch but everybody should watch it once as the best cure for the bad tendencies is to see them running in others. Both the characters have done an amazing job in portraying the ugly side of a toxic relationship. My hat tip to Aadish Keluskar for making a movie that disturbing enough to make people think. 

When I was small I only knew small things, now I am five and I know about everything. - Jack (Room)

When I was small I only knew small things, now I am five and I know about everything.

What happens when the world a 5 year old kid imagined and lived in starts expanding at an inconceivable speed?

Room is all about accepting changes in life while trying to hold on to the familiarity of the past. It’s that easy and difficult.  Jack, (Jacob  Tremblay)  knows nothing about the world except the small room in which he was born and his only human contact for everything is MA (Brie Larson). Movie opens with his birthday and he beautifully narrates how he came in to the world. The crux of the movie is established in the first line of his narration

‘Once upon a time, before I came, you cried and cried and watched TV all day, until you were a zombie. But then I zoomed down from Heaven, through skylight, into Room. And I was kicking you from the inside. Boom boom! And then I shot out onto Rug with my eyes wide open, and you cut the cord and said, hello Jack!’

Jack is a savior and he beautifully plays the part. There are instances in the movie where you’d want to pull the kid out from the screen and wish the agony, sheer confusion and situations he is made to deal with stop. That’s the power this movie has, you wish events stop unfolding themselves but it doesn’t stop.

 For Jack the only thing real is MA and all that exists in the room. Old Nick is his first contact to the ugly reality of the world. His lessons in dealing with real world begin with Old Nick: the uncalled visitor, who gets him and MA food and who hurts them. It’s with Old Nick’s second visit, post his birthday that he is made to confront the reality. The story that he grew up believing for four years isn’t true, there is a life outside the room, people on the TV are real and not magic, and there is a world on the other side of the wall.

Like every other kid he wants to believe the story told to him is real and when MA tells him the other story he demands ‘I want a different story’ but there isn’t and he is forced to deal with the other one he just heard about. The reality sweeps in with such a pace, it turns his world upside down. The two scenes where MA plans his escape are heart wrenching. He is an obedient, brave kid who despite all the confusion and uncertainty of what lies ahead agrees to help his MA. The scene where Old Nick pulls the rug out and MA is pretending Jack is dead is one of the most difficult scenes to watch. Brie Larson is something to watch out for. There are ordeals and post effects of ordeals in the movie that are piercing.

When Jack is pulled out of the room in the van, all he has with him is the fading voice of his MA in his ears and her bad tooth in his mouth. The vastness of the sky and the trees make him forget the instruction, wiggle-out, jump, run and Help. He somehow makes it but forgets things, reality is too much for him to bear that it makes him forget his MA’s real name. Somehow they are saved and he is united with his mom but the vastness of the world keeps haunting him, from watching one familiar face of a loved one to seeing uncountable faces of strangers is too much for him. His MA has to go through similar ordeal, world is no longer the same. Life has moved on, her parents have separated, her father doesn’t like Jack and then there is a fatal interview which makes her question if she did the right thing as a mother who was held captive. Her frustration when she finds it difficult to make Jack like the real world shows her helplessness. There is a scene where she yells at her mother and tells ‘Maybe if your voice saying "be nice" hadn't been in my head, then maybe I wouldn't have helped the guy with the fucking sick dog!’ makes one want to think would you teach your kids to be nice to strangers? Jack starts accepting the real world when he is separated from his MA and he once again becomes strong for her. ‘There are so many things out here. And sometimes, it's scary, but that's okay, because it's still just you and me.’ He slowly learns to deal with the world because it is still about him and his MA. If there is one thing that is still familiar and the same in this big world is his MA.

He later asks to visit Room but that too has changed. He tells his MA it can’t be the room because it didn’t have a door. The place he lived in got altered itself, its open, the roof is gone and it doesn’t even remotely look like room. Jack says his final goodbye to Room and asks MA to say goodbye. Their good bye to room is coming back to reality and dealing with the same question again where do we go when the only place familiar to us has altered itself? In some ways Riley from Inside Out and Jack are dealing with same thing, the loss of familiarity but their struggles are on a different tangent all together.

If this movie doesn’t awaken your dead sleeping heart I don’t know what will.

Oh frailty, thy name is woman!!

"This was playing on the vineyard. “Blue Moon.” I used to know the words. I knew the words. Now they’re all a jumble." 

Yes, life is all jumbled now for Jasmine. It was only few moments ago that she was basking in glory and now her life has fallen apart.  A socialite, who had nearly all the riches of the world, is now bankrupt and broke. Woody Allen sketches Jasmine’s life through back and forth narrative allowing audience to have a full view of her life. Blue Jasmine is Allen’s most audacious if not cruel portrayal of human frailty. Jasmine is what Blanche DuBois was to Tennessee Williams in The Street Car Named Desire. 

As Ginger (Jasmine’s younger sister (adopted)) puts it, ‘She is not just a broke but she is all screwed up’. If there is one thing in the movie that makes us like Jasmine is her evasive self. She is that one lucky woman whose dream of living a life of an upper class elitist comes true, but, here too, she has to forgo a lot. Allen succeeds in portraying the myriad shades of her frailty. Jasmine is that perfect portrayal of the hypocrisy that consumes Upper class society. She is that charming hostess at the party who has plenty of people around her to strike a conversation with but no one to speak her problems about. There is nothing that belongs to her, she pretends to have everything but has nothing apart from the temporary attention and material comforts. Her husband often reminds her how lucky she is. As Hal puts it ‘Is there anything you want that you don’t have?’ Jasmine is so fragile and consumed by the pretense of this upper class life that she can’t even question her husband’s extra-marital affairs. Every time Hal mutes her by making some excuse she has no option but to succumb to it. The scene in the hotel room where she believes Hal and asks him to make love to her later, is where she appears to be extremely fragile. 

Jasmine has wrapped pretense as a beautiful costume which she is just ready not let go of throughout the end. She is a weak character who fears fear to such an extent that she ends up ruining her life and those around her. When Hal discloses her that he plans to end their marriage, she turns an emotional wreck. Cate Blanchett does a fabulous job in portraying that touch of hysteria in Jasmine. Cate Blanchett drapes gloom so beautifully as if it belonged to her. The only person standing between Jasmine and her chance at happiness is Jasmine herself. It’s her emotional inability to accept and face the truth that makes her evasive. Even when life offered her a second chance to be happy, she ruined it again by playing her evasive best. 

Blue Jasmine is a masterpiece in its own way and worth watching for its dark humor, awesome character portrayals special mention to Sally Hawkins, Andrew Dice Clay, and Alec Baldwin.

To sum up in Jasmine’s own words ‘Anxiety, nightmares and a nervous breakdown, there's only so many traumas a person can withstand until they take to the streets and start screaming.’

Blue Jasmine is Woody Allen’s best tragedy so far.

Pyaasa - An unquenchable thirst

It won’t be an exaggeration to say ‘You are indeed Pyaasa if you haven’t seen Pyaasa’. A lot has been written about this movie, it is a classic, one of the best from the yester-years that Hindi Cinema has to offer. It is Guru Dutt’s magnum opus. Yes, it is all of these and more. It is a movie that will make you see and understand the society we live in. It’s not just a story about a pariah shaayar, it’s about a man’s attempt to embrace society at every step. It’s about a youth’s creativity getting muted in Post-colonial India. Vijay is not just a tormented soul, he is not just an outcast, he is someone who tries and fails and someone who eventually manages to find himself by understanding the nature of the society he lives in.

He falls for Meena, woos her with his nazams, she loves him back and leaves him wretched to marry a filthy rich businessman. Failed at love, Vijay finds life in his nazams. Rejected by his brothers, he is the black sheep of the family. The only person who belongs to him is his mother. The scene where Mausi begs him to take her with him speaks volume. It speaks of the unconditional love that a mother has to offer. Where do we search for acceptance when there is none that exist? Where do we go when family, society, your own love betrays you? One may think friends? Vijay is lucky in having an aaiyaash friend who loves to spend nights with concubines, who doesn’t mind renting his soul for a few bucks. The scene where he goes to sleep at his friend’s place and the concubine knocks at the door is one of the finest subtle scenes ever depicted. Guru Dutt’s excellence at hinting and conveying the underline meaning is fabulous. The way he folds the bedding he makes for himself on the floor and puts the pillow next to the pillow on the bed followed by that one pat on the pillow and a wily smile with which he leaves the place, says it all. No one could have done justice to the character of Vijay but Guru Dutt himself. A man of excellence does a marvelous job as an actor and director.

Left with no one to find, Vijay finds acceptance on street amongst the deplorable. His relationship with Gulabo, a prostitute (Waheeda Rehman) is one of the best relationships ever depicted on the silver screen. No wonders Pyaasa ranked amongst the top 5 romantic movies in the list of romantic movies of all time by Times Magazine in the year 2011.  Gulabo buys his nazams from a raddivala’s and makes a living from singing his nazams. She feeds him when he his hungry, waits for him when he is not to be found. She shares something in common with him, they are one in the contempt they receive from the society. The scene where she is not paid for her time and thrown out from the car, when Vijay saves her from the policeman and states she is his wife is beautiful.  

The scene where he meets his lost love Meena (Mala Sinha) and the mirror image of happy and sad version of her that leads to flashback is simply flawless. His confrontation with her when she gives justification for rejecting him and begs him to have an affair with her portrays the predicament of many women who choose money over love and suffer for the choice they make. Guru Dutt was much ahead of his time to envisage this predicament.

Pyaasa would be incomplete without the contribution of Sahir Ludhianvi. His nazams is the soul of the movie. The bazaar scene where a concubine is forced to continue her dance while her son is crying for her depicts the sheer, ruthless culture of Indian mehfil and bazaar. The song followed immediately by the scene ‘Jinhe Naaz hai hind par woh kahan hai’ was banned by Indian Government for it spoke of the brutality against women, the society and its hypocrisy, the sheer haplessness of women.  

Pyaasa is the complete journey of a man who is ostracized by society and who later on finds courage to reject it outright and makes no attempt to fit in it anymore. The last twenty five minutes where he rejects all the fame he had yearned for and shouts out loud ‘yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai’ is the best. The closing scene where Meena stops him and he says ‘I don’t have a problem with people, I have a problem with society that makes a brother betray a brother, that forces man to be everything but human’ is the best scene ever made.

The close up shot in the end where Waheeda Rehman and Guru Dutt walk towards each other just calls for a perfect happy ending.

Pyaasa is flawless. It has something for all movie freaks in it.  Movie has some light moments that are entwined perfectly. Johny Walker and his champi song ‘Sar jo tera takraye’ went on to become a cult song. It is cherished, loved and in demand even today.

I will conclude with the words of Waheeda Rehman ‘Guru Dutt remains the greatest film maker of Indian Cinema and his movies are to be showcased as the best that Hindi Cinema has to offer’.

Barfi - Movie Review

When silence celebrates life, words become inconsequential. Barfi is all about celebrating life, finding laughter in every moment and spreading joy around. Anurag Basu’s Barfi is unalloyed, delightful comedy devoid of opulence and superficiality that defines mainstream cinema. Basu’s protagonist Barfi is a charmer. He will make you laugh and cry and believe in what he does. He may be deaf and dumb but he communicates and conveys better than most of the normal people do. His mischief and tricks are tickling, he may steal but he is still harmless and innocent. Anurag Basu draws a fine line that separates humor from wit and serves you pure humor that results from funny, unavoidable situations. It is a sheer treat; Ranbir casts a spell on audience. He leaves behind Rockstar and gets into the skin of the character. He is Barfi, he may remind you of Chaplin, Raj kapoor and even Rowan Atkinson but he renders innocuous charm that’s unique and belongs only to “Barfi”. His life gets messed up when his dream girl appears on the screen. Ileana steals his heart at first, falls for him but leaves him heart broken. The scene where he proposes her and appreciates the choice she makes speaks volumes. He won’t let anyone sympathize with him. It will choke you completely, tears will well-up in your eyes but before you shed them, there is a laughter forming a bubble. The way he moves on from one heartache to other is commendable. There is sorrow but no hint of piety or loss, so fast and so easy, he makes it to move on. Three Cheers for Anurag Basu for capturing it so beautiful.

As much as Barfi belongs to Ranbir, it’s difficult to imagine without Priyanka Chopra. Barfi is incomplete without Jhilmil. PC is breathtaking as Jhilmil. She is just perfect as the autistic girl. With only one dialogue where she lashes out and exception of a few words such as shu-su, daajju, jhilmil and baffi, lady manages to steal the show. Hats off to Ravi K Chandran and Ravi Varman for capturing the beauty of nature that’s visible only to an autistic mind. Be it Darjeeling or Kalkata of 70s, it is been captured aesthetically. Music flows like river and complements silence amazingly.

Ilena as the sutradhar of the movie does a fab job, she looks beguiling and is convincing as Shruti, a meek, beautiful lady who chose to mute her love.

Basu’s obsession with Flashback continues, except for the unwanted murder mystery, kidnap of Jhilmil and a sluggish end, movie is just perfect. It has some memorable moments that will stay with you forever. Barfi going to meet Shruti’s parents to confess his love, his elation after receiving his first kiss, the beauty of night in the song ‘sanwali si raat’, Jhilmil’s disappearance after being ignored by Barfi and there is a lot more that will stay with you. Anybody who thought sorrow is cathartic should watch Barfi once.

This movie manages to moisten the parched lands and awaken your sleeping hearts. It is a sensitive movie meant purely to entertain. No wonders that only a man who braved cancer could make such a sensitive movie. Barfi is Anurag Basu’s magnum opus. It’s pure melody; it hits the right chords with audience. You are missing a life time experience if you haven’t watched it.