Bumm Bumm Bole Movie Review: Priyan’s mishmash remake of a classic

As Taare Zameen Par grew in popularity, Priyadarshan was one of the first to announce a movie with the child star- Darsheel Safary. And the subject was something that drew mixed reactions- a remake of Majid Majidi’s renowned Iranian film “Children of Heaven”. Though Priyan has always been known as a remake factory, there were some changes being noticed of late. First of all Priyan made a truly offbeat Tamil movie- “Kanchivaram” which has received wide acclaim. Later Priyan went on record to say that he wanted to make more such serious films and announced projects on subjects like land mafia, AIDS etc. All this put together made me feel that Bumm Bumm Bole ( BBB from hereon ) could be a cakewalk for Priyan- after all he just had to replicate the film in its entirety.

As the release of the film drew near & as more and more people started sniggering while talking about the film, I wondered what the fuss was all about. I thought why a veteran who’s made 75 + films should falter by making a simple children’s film. As the film starts with a clear cut credit to Majid Majidi & his film, you start feeling even better. I guess that’s where I probably went all wrong. I’m sure most of the people reading this post on PFC would have seen Children of Heaven, but still let me get on with the plot for the convenience of the others.

BBB is a story focusing on a lower middle class family living in hills of Assam (more on that later). Atul Kulkarni and Rituparna Sengupta play the parents of Darsheel & Ziyah. Both the parents lose their jobs at the same time and its hard days at home. One day Darsheel loses the sandals of his sister which he had taken to get it mended by the cobbler. Knowing that his father has no money to buy a new pair of sandals or shoes for his sister, Darsheel asks his sister to wear his shoes while going to school since they have different school timings.

Thus begins the tale of the siblings sharing a weather beaten pair of shoes and all the trouble and heart burn that the children face in between. Against this backdrop we also get to see the kind of struggle that their parents go through. The story nears conclusion when Darsheel takes part in an inter school marathon with the sole objective of winning the 3rd prize- a lovely pair of sneakers. But as fate will have it otherwise he ends up winning the race. But by the time the movie ends with some in your face in-film branding moment (more on that later) you will be thoroughly irritated with the film.

Priyan gets it completely wrong this time & you realize this from the very first scene in the movie- a bomb blast in broad daylight. Right then you know that there is going to be something terribly wrong in this remake. So you have the terrorism angle floating in the background of the movie which was totally unwarranted and the kind of geographical representation shown in the movie will make you shake your head with wonder. Presumably based in Assam, the film has been shot in Ooty, has outfits/costumes of Kashmir and yeah the people talk in regular Hindi all throughout. Wow! isn’t that too strange a concoction?

Well that’s not the end of the tale my friends. As the movie gets over and the audience disperses you hear most people whispering how the movie appears more as a promo for a prominent footwear brand. As someone who’s sold/marketed consumer goods for quite some and who has an interest in movie marketing I can tell you that the in film brand placement as seen in BBB is something that any filmmaker should vehemently oppose. For the sake of commerce if the entire brand placement appears forced and even gross at times, it doesn’t add value but actually harms the film.

In Billu Priyan went overboard with the projection of SRK the superstar with posters all over the town ( in the film )& the kind of songs used with him. Here he goes one step further by making a brand look larger than the film itself. Children of Heaven is a great emotional roller coaster ride with wonderful moments between the siblings and some reference to the father- son relationship depicted excellently. As the film draws to a close with the marathon race, your heart is racing along with the characters and at the end you are left too stunned to react.

Here you feel nothing- virtually nothing for anybody. To be honest Darsheel and Ziyah are efficient while Atul is decent as well (but tends to go a bit overboard with the dialogues) but you never get to connect with them. For those who’ve seen the original film, BBB is a laborious watch while it may just about be ok for probably for those who haven’t seen the original version. A humble request to Priyan and all those who plan to remake such classic films- please leave them alone especially if you are hell bent on screwing up with the original in question.

Originally published in PFC- http://passionforcinema.com/bumm-bumm-bole-movie-review-priyan%E2%80%99s-mishmash-remake-of-a-classic/

Pasanga- for the child in each one of us

All of us have been kids at some point of time. We have all had our moments of glory, moments of frustration, moments of success, moments of failures etc during our childhood. And barring certain exceptions I’m sure most of us look back with great satisfaction and happiness when we reminisce over our childhood days. Now haven’t many of us wanted to be an actor, a policeman, a doctor and many other things when were kids in school? Most of us would keep changing our desired profession of interest from time to time based on the current flavour. Like if I saw a movie where the hero ( mostly Amitabh Bachchan )was a cop then I spent the next few days imagining that I’m a cop. When I saw Ravi Shastri win his Audi car & get the Champion of Champion title when India won the World Championship Series in 1985, I wanted to be a cricketer. There was even a lovely ad ( Aviva life insurance ) featuring a kid,his father and Sachin Tendulkar which highlighted this aspect creatively.

While I’m talking about childhood & associated stuff can I avoid talking about children’s films? A very common complaint that we keep hearing is that children’s films as a genre has not really taken off within the mainstream cinema of India. While we have been watching movies like the Home Alone series, Baby’s Day Out, numerous animation movies, films of Majid Majidi etc and admiring them, children’s movies as a genre within the spectrum of mainstream Indian cinema has seen just the odd Masoom,Makdee,Hanuman or a Taare Zameen Par. A wonderful effort like Santosh Sivan’s Tahaan went literally unnoticed. Amidst this backdrop here comes a Tamil film called Pasanga which clearly defies all conventions and is surely a trendsetter of sorts.

Pasanga has no stars (unlike Aamir in TZP) and is not too preachy. In recent times Tamil films have seen some wonderful natural depiction of childhood in movies like Veyyil,Autograph,Azhagi, Poo etc but the difference between these films and Pasanga lies in the fact that in these films the childhood segment is only a part of the film & the kids go on to grow up and the tempo of the movie shifts to a different gear. Here in Pasanga there is a scene when one of the 4 main kids – Anbukarasu while introducing his family members to the audience cheekily says – “you might be mistaken if you feel my uncle is the hero of the family, but no I’m the actual hero and I don’t grow up till the movie is over”.

Debutant director- Pandiraj has literally relived his childhood by shooting the movie in his native village of Virachilai ( near Pudukottai ). The story begins with cheeky introductions of ‘the brat gang’ of Jeeva ( Sriram), Pakkada ( Pandian ) and Kuttymani( Murugesh ) – class 6 students,who are the troublemakers and the feared lot in school. In comes Anbukarasu I.A.S ( Kishore ) as he calls himself. Anbu is an ideal student and adds the IAS to his name as he is a follower of Dr.A.P.J.Kalam & wants to become a collector. Anbu goes on to earn the displeasure of the brat gang as he is liked by all in school including Manonmani ( Dharani ) , the cousin of Jeeva. Rubbing salt into the wounds of Jeeva & co is the fact that their class teacher Chockalingam ( Jayaprakash ) is also fond of Anbu.

So there begins a typical tale of rivalry,jealousy,hatred and of course love too. Woven into the tale of the kids is the simple romance between Meenakshi Sundaram ( Vimal ), Anbu’s uncle and Sobhikannu ( Vega who debuted in Saroja ),sister of Jeeva which is shown in a sweet and effective way. The dialogues between Meenakshi and Sobhikannu are interesting and humorous and not once do you find the romance distracting the audience from the main plot involving the kids and here again the director Pandiraj scores. Not only has the director shown the kids in a natural manner, he is even able to infuse a lot of tongue in cheek humour. Watch out for the various references to the popular Kollywood stars and their histrionics in some of the scenes in the movie.

The rural milieu has been well captured and the performances of the entire cast are extremely natural. Music by James Vasanth is good and he has shown his tribute to Ilayaraja in the right way by using a few of his tunes in the background at the right times. Cinematography by Prem kumar also does justice to the movie. While the climax is melodramatic, the finale more than makes up for it. In a nut shell this is a movie which is not just worth watching, it certainly needs to be appreciated for being a children’s film which gives you the complete satisfaction of having watched any other entertaining film. And a big round of applause goes to the producer- Sasikumar (director of Subramaniapuram ) who has shown complete faith and confidence in the vision of Pandiraj. We need more such movies, till then let the kids of ‘Pasanga’ rock.

P.S- Originally published in PFC.Check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/pasanga-for-the-child-in-each-one-of-us/