Of late I keep going into a reflective mode often and look back in time and relive a lot of interesting memories. A few days ago I was discussing with a friend about a Tamil movie –‘Guru En Aalu’ which after lying in the cans for a while finally got released a few weeks ago. What’s interesting about the movie is that it is the Tamil remake of Yes Boss. The discussion once again made me go back in time to the 90’s and think of some of the romantic songs of the 90’s.Now the 90’s are very special to me for various reasons. The 90’s were when I was a teenager and also the time when I moved out of school and into college. Also it was the 90’s again (the later part) when I became a young adult. So the memories of this decade are very precious to me & since that was the time my heart really started fluttering, a lot of memories come alive when I listen to the numerous Bollywood love songs of the 90’s.
Taking a cue from my fellow author Tushar’s write –ups ( like this one- http://passionforcinema.com/hona-hai-to-ho-hi-jayega-of-lost-songs-ii/) I am going on my journey of revisiting some of my favorite songs ( mostly romantic ) of the 90’s.If anyone is expecting me to write on the standard songs from the blockbusters like DDLJ,Aashiqui,Saajan, DTPH etc, you are thoroughly mistaken. The endeavor is to revisit those songs which have been more or less forgotten by us. Most of these songs are from movies which probably were not box office successes. And these songs are most likely not to be seen/heard anywhere these days- not even in T.V (unless the movie is being played), but back in those days of the 90’s were quite popular in their own way. Most of these songs are confined to individual memories and one has to go back to the old audio cassette/C.D or the internet to hear these songs again.
1. Sambhala Hai Maine- Naaraaz
By the early/mid 90’s Mahesh Bhatt had kind of become obsessed more with the number of projects than the quality of work and this resulted in him doing a series of movies which didn’t do much justice to his filmography (barring exceptions like Zakhm of course).One such movie was Naaraaz a movie which had Mithunda,Pooja Bhaat,Atul Agnihotri & Sonali Bhendre in the lead. Though I do vaguely remember the plot and some scenes from the movie, nothing else has remained etched permanently in my memory like the song Sambhala Hai Maine from the movie. Picturised on Atul Agnihotri and Sonali Bhendre, this was romance at its expressive best. I certainly was envious of Atul Agnihotri when I saw the song for the first time. Not only was he romancing the pretty Sonali, he also got to sing such a beautiful song on screen- probably his best ever song in his entire career as a hero J
Check out the video and relive the magic, once again.
Trivia- Tadipaar is the only other movie apart from Naaraaz where Mahesh Bhatt and Mithun Chakraborty have worked together.
2. Utra Na Dil Mein Koi- Uff!Yeh Mohabbat
The movie introduced a new hero- Abhishek Kapoor ( now popular as the director of Rock On ) and a new director- Vipin Handa (who was popular for his T.V shows on D.D) and had an upcoming heroine- Twinkle Khanna. Somehow the promos seemed to look interesting and I remember having to literally force a female friend & her sister to accompany me for the movie because no one else wanted to accompany me. I was not at all disappointed with the movie. True there wasn’t a great story to boast of but the picturesque locales of Sikkim and the songs like Utra Na Dil Mein Koi and Deewani Deewani ( music by Nikhil-Vinay )more than made up for it. While Deewani Deewani is more likely to be remembered by people now for its brilliant Sufi rendition, Utra Na Dil Mein Koi is the one which sunk into my heart and the romantic in me was floored.
For those who haven’t seen/heard the song and for those who would like to revisit it, here is the video- do have a look and fall in love once again.
Vipinji- if you ever read this let me tell you once again that it is this movie which made me fall in love with Sikkim and prompted me to make 2-3 visits. I know I have told you this before, but cannot resist the opportunity to tell this once again.
3. Sawali Saloni- Hum Sab Chor Hain
Now when a movie has Kamal Sadanah and Ritu Shivpuri in the romantic lead (for those who do not know them, just forget itJ ), what more does one have to say? So while the movie did not grab any eye balls on release and is of course completely forgotten (rightly so today), there is this song- Sawli Saloni which was extremely popular in those days. Picturised on the lead pair on a fort/palace (don’t remember which one), this one again was a Kumar Sanu hit. Lyrics by Nawab Aarzoo were perfectly in sync with the music of Bappi Lahari for the song.
For all those interested in a revisit given below is the video.
4. Hum lakh chupaya pyar magar- Jaan Tere Naam
Now this is a movie most of us are aware of. The songs were quite popular when the movie released and used to be a major draw on ‘Chitrahaar’ on D.D. Starring Rohit Roy & Farheen in the main lead, the music was by Nadeem-Shravan who were literally ruling the roost in the 90’s. Most of the other songs are also popular like Kal college bandh ho jaayega, main tumse juda ho jaunga, yeh akka India jaanta hai etc. But when it comes to love songs nothing really surpasses Hum lakh chupaye pyar magar sung by Kumar Sanu & Asha Bhonsle.
6. Resham Jaise Hain Rahein- Ek Tha Dil Ek Thi Dhadkan
I vividly remember watching the promos of this movie in T.V in 1997. The movie was supposed to be the launch vehicle of Isha Koppikar and had Inder Kumar and Arbaaz Ali Khan (seen later in Mrityudaata as Amitabh Bachchan’s younger brother). The music was by Anand Raj Anand whose first movie as composer – Masoom had just released some time before this. Abhijeet was in his element while singing this and you can feel the free spirit in the mood of the song when you listen to it. The opening lines of the song are very simple, yet makes you want to hum it to yourself (I do it often).
“Resham Jaisi Hain Rahein,Kholein Hain Bahein ,Ye Vaadiyaan Mausam Saare Hain Apne,Rangeen Sapne,Hain Maherbaan Yoon Hi Gayenge Milke ,Hum Geet Dil Ke ,Sadiyon Yahan”
I don’t know if the movie ever got released and have not yet been successful in my search for the actual video of the song. I guess I have to depend upon my old audio cassette when I want to hear this once again.
7. Aake Teri Baahon Mein- Vansh
Vansh was the Hindi remake of Manirathnam’s popular Tamil movie- Agninatchathiram. This was a movie noticed mainly due to the music of Anand-Milind. Most of the songs like Main to deewani huyi, yeh bindiya yeh kangna, etc were also quite popular. But when it comes to the turn of having a pleasant romantic track which makes you forget about the visual and just sit back and relax, one can definitely slot ‘ Aake teri baahon mein’ in this category. With veterans like S.P.Balasubramaniam and Lata Mangeshkar singing to the lyrics of Sameer ( who was having a golden run at that time as he was the busiest lyrics writer in Bollywood then ), the song is a virtual treat to the ears.
Trivia- Vansh was directed by Pappu Verma more popular as an action director. And of the main cast, Sudesh Berry and Siddharth can be still seen occasionally while the leading ladies Ekta and Priyanka have disappeared.
8. Chand se parda kijiye- Aao Pyar Karen
This was a Saif Ali Khan,Shilpa Shetty,Somy Ali starrer and was one of the early films for the main star cast. Music was composed by the then relatively new composer- Adesh Shrivastav. In combination with Shyam Raj (lyrics) Adesh composed some good songs like Haathon mein aagaya jo kal, Jab do dil milte hain, etc. But there’s something remarkable about this song –
“Chand se parda kijiye” which in spite of being a party song certainly has soul and is extremely romantic at the core.
Do check out the video once again to revive the memory once again.
Trivia- Directed by Ravindra Peepat,Aao Pyar Karein was a remake of a Tamil movie, Chemabaruthi directed by R.K.Selvamani & starring Prashant & Roja.
The list is not exhaustive and these are just some of my top of the mind recall songs in this category. Given below are a few more songs which I feel belong to this category-
Bin tere sanam- Yaara Dildaara
Man chahe sanam- Aar Ya Paar
Tu jab jab mujhko pukare- Qurbaan
Ek chanchal shokh haseena- Baaghi
Aankhon se dil mein utarke tu mere dhadkan mein hain- Fareb
Chaha to bahut na chahen tujhe- Imtihaan
Tu mile dil khile- Criminal
Feel free to add more songs which you believe fall under this category and let’s relive the 90’s once again.
P.S- Originally published in PFC.Check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/sambhala-hai-mainebahut-apne-dil-ko-revisiting-love-songs-of-the-90%e2%80%99s/
Friday, July 24, 2009
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/
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/
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Those were the best days of my life
Oh when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah, I’d always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life
Well yes Bryan Adams’s Summer of 69 is one of my all time favorites and it probably describes the essence of this write-up the best. No I’m not going to talk about my experiences in the Summer of ’69, heck I wasn’t even born then. But yes then whatever I probably will be writing here is maybe what I’ve experienced and felt while I was growing up and in that way it’s quite similar to what Bryan Adams felt too. The difference being that I’m not confining myself to just one year- but more or less a whole period of growing up.
Born in the late 70’s in a typical middle class family I was witness to the virtual flurry of events that were happening in the country in those days. I still remember that in my first few years of existence it was the large B&W T.V sets which stood for entertainment in our homes those days along with the evergreen transistor/radio of course. I also remember the entry of color T.V broadcast with the ’82 Asian Games that were staged in Delhi. I must have virtually been a toddler when my first vivid experience of identifying a movie star was captured carefully in my memory. The actor was none other than Amitabh Bachchan.
So it was basically the 80’s and the 90’s which constituted my days of growing up on all counts. Life in the 80’s especially was a lot simpler than it is now. I’m sure there would be others who would describe the 70’s, 60’s or 50’s in the same way depending on when they grew up. In my case most of my early memories are from the 80’s. I remember the monthly outings that we used to undertake as a family. Watching 1-2 movies in a month was a definite routine. If it was a Hindi or a regional movie it would be a complete family outing and if it was an English movie it would be mostly just me & my father.
One of the insights that my father realized early on was that his eldest son (who else but me) was fast becoming a ‘dangerous’ filmy. Sample this- typically in those days Chitrahaar on good old D.D used to be a big draw and something that everyone looked forward to. Typically the new songs being shown in it would first feature a poster of the movie followed by the song itself. Since watching T.V in those days was a community phenomenon , there would always be people at home while watching Chitrahaar or we would be at someone else’s house. And typically when the poster of a movie say ‘Pyar Jhukta Nahin’ would be shown, I would go off rattling the names of the cast and crew like Mithun Chakravorty,Padmini Kolhapure,Danny Denzongpa,Laxmikant-Pyarelal etc. My dad would certainly be furious at me and hence in order to ‘control the flow’ of information on movies that I was exposed to, film magazines were virtually banned at home.
So my reading of Filmfare and other such magazines would typically be in a saloon or in some other friend’s home. That was also the time when I began to take an active interest in quizzing and so my thirst for filmy knowledge kept increasing even more. Oh! and while I would watch movies of all languages in all spots on D.D (sat eve, sun eve, sun afternoon-regional language, fri late nights, tue afternoons etc and many more ) the other habit that I was accustomed to was listening to songs on radio especially on Vividh Bharati. Ameen Sayani’s Binaca/Cibaca Geetmala was my favorite and it certainly was the precursor to all the countdown shows which became popular on T.V much later.
Couple of other programs on radio which I was particularly fond of were Chhayageet which played the old songs especially at night and ‘Chitralok’ which played the musical trailers of the current releases and the upcoming releases. Of course those were the days when there used to be no internet, no mobile phones and no other gimmicks and gadgets that we have today. So even as a kid I became addicted to the ‘Friday Phenomena’ ( check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/the-friday-phenomena/) and so scanning the newspaper on Friday’s for knowing the latest releases was a big activity for me and would give me immense pleasure.
When I was finally allowed to watch movies with my friends on the rare occasions, life had become all the more colorful as I did not have to depend upon my parents alone for now having to watch a movie. King Kong Lives and Ram Lakhan were among the early movies that I remember having watched with my friends. And yes my father was strictly against going to watch a movie more than once in a theatre and so I had to come up with inventive ways every time I wanted to watch a movie again. The one thing I was very clear about is that I would never hide the fact to my parents that I saw a movie, of course but the name would often get changed at times So when I wanted to watch Hum again, I had to tell my folks that I was watching Honey I shrunk the kids and so on & so forth.
Of course sports especially cricket, soccer and tennis was something that I really had embraced and thanks to D.D, I would often be glued to the World Cup Soccer matches, the umpteen test & one day cricket matches and of course the Tennis Grand Slam tournaments. The center posters of Sportstar used to adorn the walls of my room and collecting them was a big passion as much as other hobbies that I was into like philately and numismatics.
As the 80’s gave way to the 90’s there was a new avenue of entertainment that opened up, namely satellite television. Unfortunately when the satellite revolution happened I had just cleared my class X board exams and moved to the Higher Secondary stream so for those 2 years, there was not much of T.V that I had time for. Not that I had any complaints, for by then I was completely into a lot of stuff both academic and non academic. While quizzing and other inter school events took care off attendance, movies and books still managed to feature in my schedule. Thankfully none of these really affected my studies and so I really did not have to get into any major struggle.
Well when I’m talking about my teenage days in school, can falling in love or teenage crushes be left out? I had my share too, many girls that I liked, many that liked me and some being quite mutual. But remember those days one never really knew how to be fashionable like in today’s terms? and so there was a lot of ‘ankhon hi ankhon mein ishara ho gaya, baite baite jeene ka sahara ho gaya’. That I was a decent singer with a wide repertoire of songs helped and often I would sing in the earshot of the girl I liked, songs of her choice. In true Bollywood style I faced a funny situation once.There was a girl in my class who used to stay in the same street as that of another friend of mine. So I would very often hang around her house in the pretext of meeting my friend when one day I was literally surrounded by most of the nukkad ke romeo’s who warned me to stay away from her. Thankfully in filmy style she watched it all and the next day was full of sympathy for me.
Another interesting event happened like this – the occasion was some function in school (probably my farewell party in school).All of a sudden I decided that I would go on stage & sing, the intention being only to impress a particular girl. While the plan was to sing some soft romantic number, tragedy struck when I opened my mouth and realized that a lot of screaming and shouting that day had given me a sore throat. So while I debated on apologizing and leaving the stage, my brain overworked & I surprised myself by singing ‘angna mein baba’ in ‘rock’ style taking everyone by shock. But the girl was impressed and she was the first to say that she liked my experiment.
So thus my school days were spent often under the repeated shelters of movies, books and music. The T.V and the radio were literally like members of my family and something indispensable. When I compare the current scenario with my school days, I feel a lot of satisfaction in what I underwent. Yes today’s kids have a lot of things at their disposal be it DTH, the internet, multiplexes and malls, mobile phones, play stations etc, but where is the innocence of the yesteryears? How many children nowadays actually read? How many children actually enjoy the outdoors? How many of them especially in the metros and other bigger cities have been exposed to the single screen theatres and cineplexes? I can just go on & on, for ‘those were certainly the best days of my life’.
P.S- originally published in PFC,check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/those-were-the-best-days-of-my-life/
V
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah, I’d always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life
Well yes Bryan Adams’s Summer of 69 is one of my all time favorites and it probably describes the essence of this write-up the best. No I’m not going to talk about my experiences in the Summer of ’69, heck I wasn’t even born then. But yes then whatever I probably will be writing here is maybe what I’ve experienced and felt while I was growing up and in that way it’s quite similar to what Bryan Adams felt too. The difference being that I’m not confining myself to just one year- but more or less a whole period of growing up.
Born in the late 70’s in a typical middle class family I was witness to the virtual flurry of events that were happening in the country in those days. I still remember that in my first few years of existence it was the large B&W T.V sets which stood for entertainment in our homes those days along with the evergreen transistor/radio of course. I also remember the entry of color T.V broadcast with the ’82 Asian Games that were staged in Delhi. I must have virtually been a toddler when my first vivid experience of identifying a movie star was captured carefully in my memory. The actor was none other than Amitabh Bachchan.
So it was basically the 80’s and the 90’s which constituted my days of growing up on all counts. Life in the 80’s especially was a lot simpler than it is now. I’m sure there would be others who would describe the 70’s, 60’s or 50’s in the same way depending on when they grew up. In my case most of my early memories are from the 80’s. I remember the monthly outings that we used to undertake as a family. Watching 1-2 movies in a month was a definite routine. If it was a Hindi or a regional movie it would be a complete family outing and if it was an English movie it would be mostly just me & my father.
One of the insights that my father realized early on was that his eldest son (who else but me) was fast becoming a ‘dangerous’ filmy. Sample this- typically in those days Chitrahaar on good old D.D used to be a big draw and something that everyone looked forward to. Typically the new songs being shown in it would first feature a poster of the movie followed by the song itself. Since watching T.V in those days was a community phenomenon , there would always be people at home while watching Chitrahaar or we would be at someone else’s house. And typically when the poster of a movie say ‘Pyar Jhukta Nahin’ would be shown, I would go off rattling the names of the cast and crew like Mithun Chakravorty,Padmini Kolhapure,Danny Denzongpa,Laxmikant-Pyarelal etc. My dad would certainly be furious at me and hence in order to ‘control the flow’ of information on movies that I was exposed to, film magazines were virtually banned at home.
So my reading of Filmfare and other such magazines would typically be in a saloon or in some other friend’s home. That was also the time when I began to take an active interest in quizzing and so my thirst for filmy knowledge kept increasing even more. Oh! and while I would watch movies of all languages in all spots on D.D (sat eve, sun eve, sun afternoon-regional language, fri late nights, tue afternoons etc and many more ) the other habit that I was accustomed to was listening to songs on radio especially on Vividh Bharati. Ameen Sayani’s Binaca/Cibaca Geetmala was my favorite and it certainly was the precursor to all the countdown shows which became popular on T.V much later.
Couple of other programs on radio which I was particularly fond of were Chhayageet which played the old songs especially at night and ‘Chitralok’ which played the musical trailers of the current releases and the upcoming releases. Of course those were the days when there used to be no internet, no mobile phones and no other gimmicks and gadgets that we have today. So even as a kid I became addicted to the ‘Friday Phenomena’ ( check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/the-friday-phenomena/) and so scanning the newspaper on Friday’s for knowing the latest releases was a big activity for me and would give me immense pleasure.
When I was finally allowed to watch movies with my friends on the rare occasions, life had become all the more colorful as I did not have to depend upon my parents alone for now having to watch a movie. King Kong Lives and Ram Lakhan were among the early movies that I remember having watched with my friends. And yes my father was strictly against going to watch a movie more than once in a theatre and so I had to come up with inventive ways every time I wanted to watch a movie again. The one thing I was very clear about is that I would never hide the fact to my parents that I saw a movie, of course but the name would often get changed at times So when I wanted to watch Hum again, I had to tell my folks that I was watching Honey I shrunk the kids and so on & so forth.
Of course sports especially cricket, soccer and tennis was something that I really had embraced and thanks to D.D, I would often be glued to the World Cup Soccer matches, the umpteen test & one day cricket matches and of course the Tennis Grand Slam tournaments. The center posters of Sportstar used to adorn the walls of my room and collecting them was a big passion as much as other hobbies that I was into like philately and numismatics.
As the 80’s gave way to the 90’s there was a new avenue of entertainment that opened up, namely satellite television. Unfortunately when the satellite revolution happened I had just cleared my class X board exams and moved to the Higher Secondary stream so for those 2 years, there was not much of T.V that I had time for. Not that I had any complaints, for by then I was completely into a lot of stuff both academic and non academic. While quizzing and other inter school events took care off attendance, movies and books still managed to feature in my schedule. Thankfully none of these really affected my studies and so I really did not have to get into any major struggle.
Well when I’m talking about my teenage days in school, can falling in love or teenage crushes be left out? I had my share too, many girls that I liked, many that liked me and some being quite mutual. But remember those days one never really knew how to be fashionable like in today’s terms? and so there was a lot of ‘ankhon hi ankhon mein ishara ho gaya, baite baite jeene ka sahara ho gaya’. That I was a decent singer with a wide repertoire of songs helped and often I would sing in the earshot of the girl I liked, songs of her choice. In true Bollywood style I faced a funny situation once.There was a girl in my class who used to stay in the same street as that of another friend of mine. So I would very often hang around her house in the pretext of meeting my friend when one day I was literally surrounded by most of the nukkad ke romeo’s who warned me to stay away from her. Thankfully in filmy style she watched it all and the next day was full of sympathy for me.
Another interesting event happened like this – the occasion was some function in school (probably my farewell party in school).All of a sudden I decided that I would go on stage & sing, the intention being only to impress a particular girl. While the plan was to sing some soft romantic number, tragedy struck when I opened my mouth and realized that a lot of screaming and shouting that day had given me a sore throat. So while I debated on apologizing and leaving the stage, my brain overworked & I surprised myself by singing ‘angna mein baba’ in ‘rock’ style taking everyone by shock. But the girl was impressed and she was the first to say that she liked my experiment.
So thus my school days were spent often under the repeated shelters of movies, books and music. The T.V and the radio were literally like members of my family and something indispensable. When I compare the current scenario with my school days, I feel a lot of satisfaction in what I underwent. Yes today’s kids have a lot of things at their disposal be it DTH, the internet, multiplexes and malls, mobile phones, play stations etc, but where is the innocence of the yesteryears? How many children nowadays actually read? How many children actually enjoy the outdoors? How many of them especially in the metros and other bigger cities have been exposed to the single screen theatres and cineplexes? I can just go on & on, for ‘those were certainly the best days of my life’.
P.S- originally published in PFC,check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/those-were-the-best-days-of-my-life/
V
Friday, May 29, 2009
Kick- Telugu Cinema Gets Cheeky
Ok so what do we usually expect from a Telugu movie these days, especially when it stars a popular hero? That the hero will play to the gallery and work on his strengths. That the movie will contain the typical mass elements like action, around 6 songs which includes an item number, loud villains who are more or less caricatures, nearly all the well known comedians doing some kind of inane stuff in the name of comedy, one or more heroines trying to give their share of glamour quotient, some ‘punch’ dialogues powerful enough to disturb our ear drums and so on & so forth.
So it comes as a pleasant surprise to watch Kick- the latest Telugu release which has Ravi Teja and Ileana and also introduces the Tamil actor- Shaam to Telugu Cinema. So am I saying that this movie is a trendsetter and it breaks conventional traditions? Is this movie going to be looked upon as the movie to emulate in the years to come? Oh! No, not at all. Surendar Reddy the director has tried to experiment albeit a little within the limits of commercial Telugu potboilers keeping the image of Ravi Teja in mind and at the same time trying to avoid a lot of the mandatory requirements associated with such films.
So the plot is all about Kalyan (Ravi Teja ), an engineering graduate for whom getting a ‘kick’ out of anything is the sole mantra to keep him hooked to any activity. Hence he keeps moving in & out of jobs whenever he feels the job has no kick to offer him. He is supported in this by his father ( Sayaji Shinde ) who believes that he couldn’t do what his son is doing i.e unwind and take life easy. In a very entertaining encounter Kalyan comes across Naina (Ileana) and they start liking each other. One day when Naina gets to know that Kalyan has quit yet another job, she decides she’s had enough of him & decides to get out of the relationship.
And then Naina and her family move to Malaysia where one day she meets Kalyan Krishna (Shaam) a cop from Hyderabad who has come to Malaysia to meet her formally before getting engaged. After Naina tells Kalyan Krishna her story, he too opens up and says his biggest mission currently is to catch a guy who has been doing some high value robberies of late and playing a cat & mouse game with him. Apparently the thief is also now in Malaysia and that’s the main reason for Kalyan Krishna’s visit to Malaysia.
Of course the audience need not have to be smarter than a 5th grade student to know that the thief is none other than Kalyan. So how does the cat and mouse game carry on from there? Who gets Ileana in the end & what’s the reason behind Kalyan becoming a thief is what the rest of the movie is all about. The cinematography by Rasool Ellore and the music by Thaman.S have nothing special to contribute to the film. The movie has an ensemble supporting cast which includes Brahmanandam,Venu Madhav,Ali,Jayaprakash Reddy,Kota etc. And it’s certainly nice to see Jayaprakash Reddy and Kota in comic roles and not having any fiery dialogues as usual.
Brahmanandam raises a few laughs in what is a cakewalk of a role for him. Ali and Venu Madhav are o.k. Shaam is quite decent for his 1st Telugu movie and yes it’s nice to see Ileana after a long hiatus. We all know that the lady is not just pretty but can also act given a chance (remember Pokiri?). So after virtually seeing only Tamannah & Anushka this year it’s nice to see Ileana finally who does justice to her role whenever she appears on screen – of course towards the end she just disappears. Is it a matter of convenience, Surendar Reddy garu?
Coming to Ravi Teja or motor mouth as some of the media in A.P calls him, he seems to be relishing every bit of his time in the movie. He does get to do a lot of comedy which he is good at and also does well overall. But of course this is certainly not in the same league of some of his other films like Vikramarkudu or Dubai Seenu, but certainly not a bad attempt. Watch out for the scene where he does an imitation of Amitabh Bachchan- quite hilarious. All said and done it takes some time before one gets hooked to the movie, after which it’s a reasonably decent ride.
Talking about the usual stereotypes that I mentioned in the beginning of the article let me tell you all that Kick is a movie with popular stars but it has no item numbers, no loud villains ( in fact no villain at all ) , has no powerful ‘punch’ dialogues and nothing untoward in the name of glamour. Considering that the movie seems to have steered clear of these typical stereotypes associated with a big star Telugu movie and at the same time still decently entertains, the movie is to be credited. For the Telugu movie audience in A.P, with the scorching summer in full peak there is at least something to watch and cool themselves.
So it comes as a pleasant surprise to watch Kick- the latest Telugu release which has Ravi Teja and Ileana and also introduces the Tamil actor- Shaam to Telugu Cinema. So am I saying that this movie is a trendsetter and it breaks conventional traditions? Is this movie going to be looked upon as the movie to emulate in the years to come? Oh! No, not at all. Surendar Reddy the director has tried to experiment albeit a little within the limits of commercial Telugu potboilers keeping the image of Ravi Teja in mind and at the same time trying to avoid a lot of the mandatory requirements associated with such films.
So the plot is all about Kalyan (Ravi Teja ), an engineering graduate for whom getting a ‘kick’ out of anything is the sole mantra to keep him hooked to any activity. Hence he keeps moving in & out of jobs whenever he feels the job has no kick to offer him. He is supported in this by his father ( Sayaji Shinde ) who believes that he couldn’t do what his son is doing i.e unwind and take life easy. In a very entertaining encounter Kalyan comes across Naina (Ileana) and they start liking each other. One day when Naina gets to know that Kalyan has quit yet another job, she decides she’s had enough of him & decides to get out of the relationship.
And then Naina and her family move to Malaysia where one day she meets Kalyan Krishna (Shaam) a cop from Hyderabad who has come to Malaysia to meet her formally before getting engaged. After Naina tells Kalyan Krishna her story, he too opens up and says his biggest mission currently is to catch a guy who has been doing some high value robberies of late and playing a cat & mouse game with him. Apparently the thief is also now in Malaysia and that’s the main reason for Kalyan Krishna’s visit to Malaysia.
Of course the audience need not have to be smarter than a 5th grade student to know that the thief is none other than Kalyan. So how does the cat and mouse game carry on from there? Who gets Ileana in the end & what’s the reason behind Kalyan becoming a thief is what the rest of the movie is all about. The cinematography by Rasool Ellore and the music by Thaman.S have nothing special to contribute to the film. The movie has an ensemble supporting cast which includes Brahmanandam,Venu Madhav,Ali,Jayaprakash Reddy,Kota etc. And it’s certainly nice to see Jayaprakash Reddy and Kota in comic roles and not having any fiery dialogues as usual.
Brahmanandam raises a few laughs in what is a cakewalk of a role for him. Ali and Venu Madhav are o.k. Shaam is quite decent for his 1st Telugu movie and yes it’s nice to see Ileana after a long hiatus. We all know that the lady is not just pretty but can also act given a chance (remember Pokiri?). So after virtually seeing only Tamannah & Anushka this year it’s nice to see Ileana finally who does justice to her role whenever she appears on screen – of course towards the end she just disappears. Is it a matter of convenience, Surendar Reddy garu?
Coming to Ravi Teja or motor mouth as some of the media in A.P calls him, he seems to be relishing every bit of his time in the movie. He does get to do a lot of comedy which he is good at and also does well overall. But of course this is certainly not in the same league of some of his other films like Vikramarkudu or Dubai Seenu, but certainly not a bad attempt. Watch out for the scene where he does an imitation of Amitabh Bachchan- quite hilarious. All said and done it takes some time before one gets hooked to the movie, after which it’s a reasonably decent ride.
Talking about the usual stereotypes that I mentioned in the beginning of the article let me tell you all that Kick is a movie with popular stars but it has no item numbers, no loud villains ( in fact no villain at all ) , has no powerful ‘punch’ dialogues and nothing untoward in the name of glamour. Considering that the movie seems to have steered clear of these typical stereotypes associated with a big star Telugu movie and at the same time still decently entertains, the movie is to be credited. For the Telugu movie audience in A.P, with the scorching summer in full peak there is at least something to watch and cool themselves.
Originally published in PFC-check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/kick-telugu-cinema-gets-cheeky/
My thoughts on ‘Frozen’- A brilliant celluloid dream
March 13th, 2009 will remain a special day for me. That’s the day when I had a very interesting experience of watching 2 interesting movies. Before anybody asks me what’s so special about watching 2 movies in a day, after all most of have us grown up watching multiple movies in a day-let me tell you that the day was unique for me due to the films watched and the person with whom I watched the movies alongside. The movies were Gulaal and Frozen and the person I saw the movies together with was Shivajee Chandrabhushan-the director and producer of Frozen.
I had started knowing Shivajee through PFC just a short while before this day in March. When I realized that Frozen had already made the rounds of some 30 odd festivals worldwide and that in spite of having won some 18 awards it was yet to find a release, I was really shocked and surprised. Looking back I still remember telling Shivajee (before watching the movie) that for the sake of Ladakh,Danny & Shivajee I would like to watch the movie at the 1st given opportunity. Yes what also attracted me to the movie apart from the fact that it was well received in so many film festivals was that it was a black & white film shot in Ladakh & it had Danny Denzongpa as the main lead.
Having been to Ladakh myself I was more than curious to know how Shivajee has captured the harsh terrain of Ladakh on screen. Also it had been a while since I had seen Danny in a performance befitting him (his recent few roles being not so noteworthy). Interestingly I had a lot of questions even before I had seen the movie, but kept it to myself till I saw the movie. At first I had a plan of meeting Shivajee in Bangalore (prefer this over Bengaluru) and watch the movie as he had been invited to come over &showcase his movie by a reputed institution there. But thanks to the Feb screening by Enlighten Film Society in Mumbai the theatrical release finally began to look like a reality and so the Bangalore program was dropped.
So when I was wondering when I would be getting to watch the movie I had a trip to Mumbai scheduled in March and that was when Shivajee and I decided to meet up and he promised to show me his film. Since March 13th happened to be the release date of Gulaal, we decided to watch Gulaal before we saw Frozen. Shivajee was quite apprehensive of my response towards Frozen as we were going to watch it after Gulaal- which in Shivajee’s words was a very colorful film. But I asked him to relax and told him that I will still be able to watch it distinctly and give him my honest opinion after the movie is over.
So after the luxury of watching Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal in Gold class at Fame- Malad, off we went to Shivajee’s home cum studio where to my surprise we watched the movie straight from his editing table. To my mind it looked like the next best thing to watching it on the big screen. And for the next 107 minutes or so I was glued to the film and nothing else. In between Shivajee kept disappearing so that I could watch the movie in peace. After the movie I had a fairly long discussion with Shivajee over some red wine regarding the movie. And yes the discussion was made even more meaningful by the presence of Gauri- the female lead of Frozen (who plays Lasya the daughter of Karma- Danny Denzongpa ) and Triparna- the director’s assistant who’s been on the project from the 2nd festival ( of the 30 odd ) till this date and who is the livewire of the team.
The ‘story’ is all about Karma (Danny) who lives with his daughter Lasya ( Gauri ) and son Chomo ( Angchuk ) in the high reaches of Ladakh. It’s about the day to day struggle for existence that Karma and his family goes through and how their life undergoes a series of changes due to some incidents. Now more than the story per se what struck me was the way the story unfolds and the narrative that keeps you spellbound.
As the movie got over I was in a state of shock as it looked like what I had witnessed was poetry on screen. The use of monochrome brilliantly helps in capturing the harsh landscape and one often tends to get lost in the landscape while watching the movie. So is it the beauty of Ladakh or the cinematography of Shankar Raman which deserves the credit? Well I give the credit to both. Shivajee has been able to extract brilliant performances from his cast- be it the main cast of Danny,Gauri and Angchuk or the supporting cast which includes known names like Raj Zutshi,Yashpal Sharma, Aamir Bashir,Shakeel Khan,Shilpa Shukla etc.
What is certainly praise worthy is the level of detailing that Shivajee has gone into with this film. Not one character or a situation looks out of place. Nowadays one comes across the use of metaphors in a lot of movies, but let me tell you that Shivajee uses them subtly and very effectively in this movie. In fact it was difficult to digest that this was all the work of a first time director and producer. So much so that my admiration for Shivajee and his work has only increased after I saw the movie.
The movie finally has released today, the 8th of May 2009 and it’s a great moral victory not only for Shivajee and the team of Frozen but for all who support good cinema.What is amazing about the release is that the distributors – Enlighten Film Society – run by Pranav Ashar and Jimmy Mistry are first timers themselves in terms of film distribution. I wish to certainly appreciate their efforts which have finally helped in the film’s release in India. Also Frozen might probably the first Indian movie to have a staggered release as it releases today in Mumbai first which will be followed by other cities like Delhi,Kolkata,Bangalore etc. This date- 8th May 2009 will always go in history as Frozen will be the only Hindi film to find a release in this date and that too in the multiplexes when the on going stand off between the producers/distributors combine and the multiplexes continues.
Originally published in PFC-check it out here-http://passionforcinema.com/my-thoughts-on-%e2%80%98frozen%e2%80%99-a-brilliant-celluloid-dream/
I had started knowing Shivajee through PFC just a short while before this day in March. When I realized that Frozen had already made the rounds of some 30 odd festivals worldwide and that in spite of having won some 18 awards it was yet to find a release, I was really shocked and surprised. Looking back I still remember telling Shivajee (before watching the movie) that for the sake of Ladakh,Danny & Shivajee I would like to watch the movie at the 1st given opportunity. Yes what also attracted me to the movie apart from the fact that it was well received in so many film festivals was that it was a black & white film shot in Ladakh & it had Danny Denzongpa as the main lead.
Having been to Ladakh myself I was more than curious to know how Shivajee has captured the harsh terrain of Ladakh on screen. Also it had been a while since I had seen Danny in a performance befitting him (his recent few roles being not so noteworthy). Interestingly I had a lot of questions even before I had seen the movie, but kept it to myself till I saw the movie. At first I had a plan of meeting Shivajee in Bangalore (prefer this over Bengaluru) and watch the movie as he had been invited to come over &showcase his movie by a reputed institution there. But thanks to the Feb screening by Enlighten Film Society in Mumbai the theatrical release finally began to look like a reality and so the Bangalore program was dropped.
So when I was wondering when I would be getting to watch the movie I had a trip to Mumbai scheduled in March and that was when Shivajee and I decided to meet up and he promised to show me his film. Since March 13th happened to be the release date of Gulaal, we decided to watch Gulaal before we saw Frozen. Shivajee was quite apprehensive of my response towards Frozen as we were going to watch it after Gulaal- which in Shivajee’s words was a very colorful film. But I asked him to relax and told him that I will still be able to watch it distinctly and give him my honest opinion after the movie is over.
So after the luxury of watching Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal in Gold class at Fame- Malad, off we went to Shivajee’s home cum studio where to my surprise we watched the movie straight from his editing table. To my mind it looked like the next best thing to watching it on the big screen. And for the next 107 minutes or so I was glued to the film and nothing else. In between Shivajee kept disappearing so that I could watch the movie in peace. After the movie I had a fairly long discussion with Shivajee over some red wine regarding the movie. And yes the discussion was made even more meaningful by the presence of Gauri- the female lead of Frozen (who plays Lasya the daughter of Karma- Danny Denzongpa ) and Triparna- the director’s assistant who’s been on the project from the 2nd festival ( of the 30 odd ) till this date and who is the livewire of the team.
The ‘story’ is all about Karma (Danny) who lives with his daughter Lasya ( Gauri ) and son Chomo ( Angchuk ) in the high reaches of Ladakh. It’s about the day to day struggle for existence that Karma and his family goes through and how their life undergoes a series of changes due to some incidents. Now more than the story per se what struck me was the way the story unfolds and the narrative that keeps you spellbound.
As the movie got over I was in a state of shock as it looked like what I had witnessed was poetry on screen. The use of monochrome brilliantly helps in capturing the harsh landscape and one often tends to get lost in the landscape while watching the movie. So is it the beauty of Ladakh or the cinematography of Shankar Raman which deserves the credit? Well I give the credit to both. Shivajee has been able to extract brilliant performances from his cast- be it the main cast of Danny,Gauri and Angchuk or the supporting cast which includes known names like Raj Zutshi,Yashpal Sharma, Aamir Bashir,Shakeel Khan,Shilpa Shukla etc.
What is certainly praise worthy is the level of detailing that Shivajee has gone into with this film. Not one character or a situation looks out of place. Nowadays one comes across the use of metaphors in a lot of movies, but let me tell you that Shivajee uses them subtly and very effectively in this movie. In fact it was difficult to digest that this was all the work of a first time director and producer. So much so that my admiration for Shivajee and his work has only increased after I saw the movie.
The movie finally has released today, the 8th of May 2009 and it’s a great moral victory not only for Shivajee and the team of Frozen but for all who support good cinema.What is amazing about the release is that the distributors – Enlighten Film Society – run by Pranav Ashar and Jimmy Mistry are first timers themselves in terms of film distribution. I wish to certainly appreciate their efforts which have finally helped in the film’s release in India. Also Frozen might probably the first Indian movie to have a staggered release as it releases today in Mumbai first which will be followed by other cities like Delhi,Kolkata,Bangalore etc. This date- 8th May 2009 will always go in history as Frozen will be the only Hindi film to find a release in this date and that too in the multiplexes when the on going stand off between the producers/distributors combine and the multiplexes continues.
Originally published in PFC-check it out here-http://passionforcinema.com/my-thoughts-on-%e2%80%98frozen%e2%80%99-a-brilliant-celluloid-dream/
Stereotyping in Indian Films- How long will it continue?
By now its common knowledge that RGV and Vivek Oberoi are re-uniting for Rakta Charitra, a biopic on Paritala Ravi, the dreaded factionalist leader of A.P who was shot down a few years ago. But what is making me look forward to the project is to see if RGV is able to carry off the transition of factional A.P politics and associated violence conveniently into a mainstream Hindi movie. After all it’s not easy to make a transition of this sort without avoiding the typical stereotypes seen in Indian cinema. And no the stereotyping is not a prerogative of Bollywood or any particular regional language cinema; it can be seen usually across Indian cinema. India is growing, developing, changing for the better as a country so why should we still allow the kind of stereotyping that has existed in Indian cinema for ages?
To drive across my point I would definitely look at some of the more common stereotypes seen in Indian cinema with some relevant examples wherever possible.
1.Most South Indian characters are just ‘Madrasis’ who keep saying ‘ayyayyo ayyayyo’- Well right from Mehmood in Padosan to Satish Kaushik in Saajan Chale Sasural or Shreyas Talpade in Golmaal Returns, South Indian characters are mainly shown as caricatures who speak pathetic Hindi and there is very poor detailing done by the director/writer. When Rohit Shetty, a South Indian himself cannot differentiate between a Tamilian & a Telugu personality, what more should I say? In case you do not understand what I say- just watch Golmaal Returns. Shreyas Talpade and Celina Jaitley play Tamilian characters in the movie, but whenever Shreyas is excited- he starts singing- ‘Aa Ante Amalapuram’ a popular song from the Telugu hit movie-Arya, now why would you show it this way, unless you don’t have an eye for detailing?
2.Most North Indian characters have to be a ‘sethji’ in a typical South Indian movie and the character is supposed to directly/indirectly elicit laughter from the audience. You can check out countless Tamil movies in particular for the same. Why can’t a North Indian be shown in a regular capacity instead of being shown as a caricature.
3.It’s ok to show the female lead as a North Indian but not the male lead in South Indian movies. Sure it’s fine to show a typical hero falling sometimes in love with the heroine who happens to be from the North, but the reverse hardly happens. I was very happy to see a recent Tamil movie- Abhiyum Naanum (Akasamantha-Telugu) where Trisha the heroine falls in love with a sardar (Ganesh Venkatraman), at least someone is trying to change things being depicted on screen.
4.Regionalism taking precedence over authenticity- In a recent Tamil movie- Arasangam, the protagonist, Vijaykanth speaks in Tamil to all & sundry in places like Assam & even Canada. Since when did everyone start speaking Tamil all over? Or take a recent Telugu movie- Shouryam- a major part of the movie is shot in Kolkata but no body is seen speaking in Bengali or even Hindi for that matter. It looks like everybody speaks in Telugu in Kolkata. Now can’t this be avoided?
5.Shooting abroad- is it necessary every time for every movie? What started off as an attempt to offer something new to the Indian audiences by shooting mainly songs abroad in exotic locations, later gave way to even the whole movie being shot abroad. But now I think the phenomenon has become a joke & in a lot of cases you actually wonder as to why was the movie shot abroad. Some recent examples of the same include- Yuvvraj and Tasveer 8*10.Did the story in these movies actually have anything compelling for the makers to shoot it overseas instead of basing it in India & shooting it here?
The above given stereotypes are just some of the more commonly seen ones. But the list is definitely not exhaustive. I feel that the issue of stereotyping is avoided as far as possible by people who believe in detailing to the best extent possible. Here I’m referring to people like a Manirathnam,Vishal Bharadwaj,Cheran,Anurag Kashyap etc.These are the people who can by way of getting into detailing take care and avoid stereotypes to the best extent possible.On a parting note let me remind you all about one of one of my favorite scenes from Indian cinema which shows how detailing can really heighten a scene and virtually avoid any type of stereotyping.
The scene is from Roja (Tamil) after Arvind Swamy has been captured by the militants and he finds himself face to face with their leader, Pankaj Kapur. When Pankaj Kapur questions Arvind in Tamil, he is very much intrigued and wants to know how Pankaj knows Tamil. To this Pankaj Kapur calmly replies that he studied (B.SC) Agriculture from Tamilnadu Agricultural University,Coimbatore and learnt Tamil during those days in college. A great scene conceived and developed by a master story teller/director.
So when do we get to see more and more of the stereotypes being given a farewell in Indian cinema?
Note- My attempt here has been to generally look at stereotyping in Indian films & comment on why we cannot bid goodbye to them. It’s not an attempt to talk about any particular movie or personality over here. Feel free to write on some of the other stereotypes that you feel exist in Indian cinema, after all the list is rather long.
Originally published in PFC- check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/stereotyping-in-indian-films-how-long-will-it-continue/
To drive across my point I would definitely look at some of the more common stereotypes seen in Indian cinema with some relevant examples wherever possible.
1.Most South Indian characters are just ‘Madrasis’ who keep saying ‘ayyayyo ayyayyo’- Well right from Mehmood in Padosan to Satish Kaushik in Saajan Chale Sasural or Shreyas Talpade in Golmaal Returns, South Indian characters are mainly shown as caricatures who speak pathetic Hindi and there is very poor detailing done by the director/writer. When Rohit Shetty, a South Indian himself cannot differentiate between a Tamilian & a Telugu personality, what more should I say? In case you do not understand what I say- just watch Golmaal Returns. Shreyas Talpade and Celina Jaitley play Tamilian characters in the movie, but whenever Shreyas is excited- he starts singing- ‘Aa Ante Amalapuram’ a popular song from the Telugu hit movie-Arya, now why would you show it this way, unless you don’t have an eye for detailing?
2.Most North Indian characters have to be a ‘sethji’ in a typical South Indian movie and the character is supposed to directly/indirectly elicit laughter from the audience. You can check out countless Tamil movies in particular for the same. Why can’t a North Indian be shown in a regular capacity instead of being shown as a caricature.
3.It’s ok to show the female lead as a North Indian but not the male lead in South Indian movies. Sure it’s fine to show a typical hero falling sometimes in love with the heroine who happens to be from the North, but the reverse hardly happens. I was very happy to see a recent Tamil movie- Abhiyum Naanum (Akasamantha-Telugu) where Trisha the heroine falls in love with a sardar (Ganesh Venkatraman), at least someone is trying to change things being depicted on screen.
4.Regionalism taking precedence over authenticity- In a recent Tamil movie- Arasangam, the protagonist, Vijaykanth speaks in Tamil to all & sundry in places like Assam & even Canada. Since when did everyone start speaking Tamil all over? Or take a recent Telugu movie- Shouryam- a major part of the movie is shot in Kolkata but no body is seen speaking in Bengali or even Hindi for that matter. It looks like everybody speaks in Telugu in Kolkata. Now can’t this be avoided?
5.Shooting abroad- is it necessary every time for every movie? What started off as an attempt to offer something new to the Indian audiences by shooting mainly songs abroad in exotic locations, later gave way to even the whole movie being shot abroad. But now I think the phenomenon has become a joke & in a lot of cases you actually wonder as to why was the movie shot abroad. Some recent examples of the same include- Yuvvraj and Tasveer 8*10.Did the story in these movies actually have anything compelling for the makers to shoot it overseas instead of basing it in India & shooting it here?
The above given stereotypes are just some of the more commonly seen ones. But the list is definitely not exhaustive. I feel that the issue of stereotyping is avoided as far as possible by people who believe in detailing to the best extent possible. Here I’m referring to people like a Manirathnam,Vishal Bharadwaj,Cheran,Anurag Kashyap etc.These are the people who can by way of getting into detailing take care and avoid stereotypes to the best extent possible.On a parting note let me remind you all about one of one of my favorite scenes from Indian cinema which shows how detailing can really heighten a scene and virtually avoid any type of stereotyping.
The scene is from Roja (Tamil) after Arvind Swamy has been captured by the militants and he finds himself face to face with their leader, Pankaj Kapur. When Pankaj Kapur questions Arvind in Tamil, he is very much intrigued and wants to know how Pankaj knows Tamil. To this Pankaj Kapur calmly replies that he studied (B.SC) Agriculture from Tamilnadu Agricultural University,Coimbatore and learnt Tamil during those days in college. A great scene conceived and developed by a master story teller/director.
So when do we get to see more and more of the stereotypes being given a farewell in Indian cinema?
Note- My attempt here has been to generally look at stereotyping in Indian films & comment on why we cannot bid goodbye to them. It’s not an attempt to talk about any particular movie or personality over here. Feel free to write on some of the other stereotypes that you feel exist in Indian cinema, after all the list is rather long.
Originally published in PFC- check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/stereotyping-in-indian-films-how-long-will-it-continue/
Producers/Distributors Vs Multiplexes Standoff- the 3rd Dimension
I was planning to write the 3rd part of my traditional single screen theatre experience series ( check out the 2nd part- http://passionforcinema.com/the-traditional-single-screen-experience-series-%e2%80%93-apsara-theatrecoimbatore/)this morning when something took me by surprise. I was reading the Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad edition) and saw that the major part of Page 2 was devoted to articles on cinema. This definitely looked unnatural to me & so I spent some time reading the articles. While the major space was devoted to how the bigger stars in A.P are of late doing fewer projects and so the effect of this on business in the industry, I was more intrigued by another article. This article was all about how single screen theatres mainly screening Bollywood movies in a lot of cities in A.P are now struggling for survival due to lack of content and playing old Hindi & English movies to keep the theatres occupied.
The article goes on to describe the plight of these theatres and said that if lack of content continues, then some of these theatres are likely to close down for survival. This article made me immediately think about the on going strike in Bollywood from a totally different angle. By now its common knowledge that there is an ongoing strike in Bollywood called by the Producers/Distributors combine against the Multiplexes in order to ensure 50: 50 ratio of revenue sharing (read this -http://passionforcinema.com/next-month-at-the-movies-money-saved-joy-lost/). What was initially expected to last for a month has now entered into its 2nd month and there still doesn’t seem to be any improvement in the anvil apart from a meeting held between the 2 sides earlier this week & another such meeting planned for the next week.
In fact more or less all the Bollywood releases that were scheduled for May have already been pushed to June or later. As of now the only movies likely to release in May are – Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s Frozen,99and Vashu Bhagnani’s Kal Kissne Dekha. All of us including myself have been wondering as to how the strike will benefit either side. We feel this very strongly as we know that the strike doesn’t help the producers/distributors since prolonged delay of projects can lead to a lot of problems like interest rates of money borrowed going up , promotion not possible, confusion regarding release dates etc. Also for the multiplexes lack of content is a sure thing to happen and so this has a direct impact on footfalls and hence the collection.
In the midst of all this is a totally different phenomenon that is being witnessed in a lot of places across the country – the traditional single screen theatres and cineplexes are now struggling for survival. It’s amazing that all the industry leaders or opinion makers have completely ignored this entity altogether in situation. How many of us have heard of anybody standing up for these temples of cinema which are already dying slowly? While I know the strike would make an impact on the 2 warring sections of Bollywood, I think we should be more concerned for the single screens and the cineplexes who have been caught in the middle of the strike for no fault of theirs.
Most of the multiplexes are chains and run in various locations across the country/in one or more states. And these chain multiplexes are usually run by fairly significant corporate houses for whom though there is a loss of revenue right now, they can make it up in due course of time because they have bigger pockets and in a lot of cases they enjoy tax benefit etc. This phenomenon does not hold true in case of the single screen theatres and multiplexes except in exceptional cases. What I mean is that except some theatres run by individuals/business houses for whom this is just another business venture, most of the other theatres are run by people who have been associated with the business for a long time and who have a deep dependence on it for revenue and other reasons.
It is these people who are getting affected and hit hard the most. Already across the country more and more of these traditional theatres are closing down for various reasons. And such a situation where lack of content to play in the theatres makes it even more difficult for them to survive. If there are quite a few Hindi release theatres in A.P & Karnataka which are affected by the strike, then the situation is even more serious when you look at theatres outside South India where the dependence on Hindi cinema is much much more. For those who would want to say why cannot these theatres look towards regional cinema in the interim period- I have a few things to say.
I am sure all of us would agree that in the typical Hindi belt it would be difficult to think of regional cinema of any kind substituting Hindi cinema. Also there have not been too many typical big Hollywood movies releasing recently to make up for some of the gap. Marathi cinema has a blockbuster now (Me Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy)which would help the theatres screening it, but do we have more such movies in the pipeline? It would be great if the answer is a resounding yes. Going down south the situation is not too impressive either except for Kerala. Kerala is yet to embrace the multiplex culture and this summer it has 2 movies which are doing well- To Harihar Nagar and Bhagyadevatha. Ayan is the only Tamil movie which has been doing well of late and lack of competition has ensured that the Telugu version of Billa do a reasonable business.
So again there are a lot of theatres screening regional movies but not all of them are doing too well. So it’s not just that the Bollywood strike which is impacting the survival of these traditional single screens but it’s a coincidence that while the strike is meant to be a face off between two warring sections of the sector, silently a 3rd section is getting affected. So for the survival of these temples of cinema I sincerely hope the strike is called off soon and we see the flow of releases happening shortly.
Note- In no way am I talking about the quality of movies here. I am trying to cover the vital issue of survival and viability of the traditional single screen theatres/cineplexes over here.
Originally published in PFC-check it out here-http://passionforcinema.com/producersdistributors-vs-multiplexes-standoff-the-3rd-dimension/
The article goes on to describe the plight of these theatres and said that if lack of content continues, then some of these theatres are likely to close down for survival. This article made me immediately think about the on going strike in Bollywood from a totally different angle. By now its common knowledge that there is an ongoing strike in Bollywood called by the Producers/Distributors combine against the Multiplexes in order to ensure 50: 50 ratio of revenue sharing (read this -http://passionforcinema.com/next-month-at-the-movies-money-saved-joy-lost/). What was initially expected to last for a month has now entered into its 2nd month and there still doesn’t seem to be any improvement in the anvil apart from a meeting held between the 2 sides earlier this week & another such meeting planned for the next week.
In fact more or less all the Bollywood releases that were scheduled for May have already been pushed to June or later. As of now the only movies likely to release in May are – Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s Frozen,99and Vashu Bhagnani’s Kal Kissne Dekha. All of us including myself have been wondering as to how the strike will benefit either side. We feel this very strongly as we know that the strike doesn’t help the producers/distributors since prolonged delay of projects can lead to a lot of problems like interest rates of money borrowed going up , promotion not possible, confusion regarding release dates etc. Also for the multiplexes lack of content is a sure thing to happen and so this has a direct impact on footfalls and hence the collection.
In the midst of all this is a totally different phenomenon that is being witnessed in a lot of places across the country – the traditional single screen theatres and cineplexes are now struggling for survival. It’s amazing that all the industry leaders or opinion makers have completely ignored this entity altogether in situation. How many of us have heard of anybody standing up for these temples of cinema which are already dying slowly? While I know the strike would make an impact on the 2 warring sections of Bollywood, I think we should be more concerned for the single screens and the cineplexes who have been caught in the middle of the strike for no fault of theirs.
Most of the multiplexes are chains and run in various locations across the country/in one or more states. And these chain multiplexes are usually run by fairly significant corporate houses for whom though there is a loss of revenue right now, they can make it up in due course of time because they have bigger pockets and in a lot of cases they enjoy tax benefit etc. This phenomenon does not hold true in case of the single screen theatres and multiplexes except in exceptional cases. What I mean is that except some theatres run by individuals/business houses for whom this is just another business venture, most of the other theatres are run by people who have been associated with the business for a long time and who have a deep dependence on it for revenue and other reasons.
It is these people who are getting affected and hit hard the most. Already across the country more and more of these traditional theatres are closing down for various reasons. And such a situation where lack of content to play in the theatres makes it even more difficult for them to survive. If there are quite a few Hindi release theatres in A.P & Karnataka which are affected by the strike, then the situation is even more serious when you look at theatres outside South India where the dependence on Hindi cinema is much much more. For those who would want to say why cannot these theatres look towards regional cinema in the interim period- I have a few things to say.
I am sure all of us would agree that in the typical Hindi belt it would be difficult to think of regional cinema of any kind substituting Hindi cinema. Also there have not been too many typical big Hollywood movies releasing recently to make up for some of the gap. Marathi cinema has a blockbuster now (Me Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy)which would help the theatres screening it, but do we have more such movies in the pipeline? It would be great if the answer is a resounding yes. Going down south the situation is not too impressive either except for Kerala. Kerala is yet to embrace the multiplex culture and this summer it has 2 movies which are doing well- To Harihar Nagar and Bhagyadevatha. Ayan is the only Tamil movie which has been doing well of late and lack of competition has ensured that the Telugu version of Billa do a reasonable business.
So again there are a lot of theatres screening regional movies but not all of them are doing too well. So it’s not just that the Bollywood strike which is impacting the survival of these traditional single screens but it’s a coincidence that while the strike is meant to be a face off between two warring sections of the sector, silently a 3rd section is getting affected. So for the survival of these temples of cinema I sincerely hope the strike is called off soon and we see the flow of releases happening shortly.
Note- In no way am I talking about the quality of movies here. I am trying to cover the vital issue of survival and viability of the traditional single screen theatres/cineplexes over here.
Originally published in PFC-check it out here-http://passionforcinema.com/producersdistributors-vs-multiplexes-standoff-the-3rd-dimension/
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