anilwebsmith Reviews

LOC: Kargil (2003)

Priceless effort in documenting the story, but fails to enhance it

[29 December 2003]

When I was watching this movie, I was simultaneously being hit by two things

• the ordinariness of the 'production' quality. What is called 'production values' - lighting, sound, authenticity of effect, bullets hitting people, the environment. See 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Thin Red Line', 'Black Hawk Down', which have you shivering, and diving for cover as bullets fly. I know we don't have the kind of money that they have, but as a member of the audience I have become terribly spoilt by Hollywood, what more can I say. Remember that I WANTED to like the movie, so I am not being careless when I comment that it came across as too artificial and stage like. All the hill storming scenes for e.g., are all from the same camera angle and all have a hill bathed in a uniform light, as if from a lamppost, and just did not pull me into forgetting it was happening on screen. I was too cognisant that I was watching from an aloof medium, a seat facing a stage on what this was all happening perhaps.

• The story, the challenges our men faced, their pain, their courage, the difficulty of the situation, all of that.

It struck me that as a movie buff, I should try to somehow be able to differentiate the two even in the midst of 'enjoying' the movie. Differentiate all that is hitting me because of what happened out there from that which is hitting me only because of the way it has been treated / presented by JP. I found, limited as I was in my ability to do this, that despite my best wishes to conclude otherwise, I was being only 'moved' by the facts of the former, and not at all by the effort of the latter. If a young guy, who is about to get married to his childhood fiancée dies while bravely storming a hill currently occupied by miserable mother*&£$£s I would strangle personally if I had the guts, its going to move me in tears by just hearing about it. What I couldn't find was a camera angle, a single feature of the presentation that added to this impact. In fact, I will go so far as to claim that the artificiality of the treatment took away some of it.

That's about it - was very moved by what the story had to convey, and the research etc has no doubt been brilliant, but as a celluloid 'creation' , didn't find any 'value add' - as a documentary of what happened in itself its priceless, if only because film reaches out to a lot more people than any other media, including newspapers etc.

Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003)

Glad to see even the movies with oft repeated storylines are improving by way of focusing on treatment, production values, reduction of melodrama / cliches etc

[7/10 · 1 December 2003]

Way to go!Classic Dharma productions look and feel, so not let down there. New York is captured so beautifully and for the second time within a very short time frame (After the suprisingly well treated, and refreshingly different 'Out of Control') New York has been made the heart of the storyline in a way that does not stand out and remind you it doesn't fit in with your regular serving of bollywood protagonists. Nor is it one of the locales, one that appears in a brief period of the movie or a song -its right there as the setting of the entire movie, all throughout.Nothing in the script occurs because the setting is NY and not Mumbai for e.g. to remind you that the location is relevant. This has been attempted with a lot of movies no doubt, Yaadein for e.g., not so much K3G, which has an overlap with India, but each time the characters have felt out of place. In Kal Ho Na Ho(KHNH), I must say I was able to enjoy an NY setting, without getting distracted from the story. So that's a definite plus. Then comes the maturity in terms of absence of melodrame and sensitivity to audience emotions - Aman (SRK)had to die, otherwise the story would have lost its meaning, and yet seeing Aman take his last breath in a dramatic fall of his hand from Rohit's(Saif) palm or a turn of the head on the pillow would have made me wince, and left a bitter taste in my mouth. That bitter taste would take away the warm, somehow feel goodness about how we can move on and things can turn out once you accept the inevitability of death that Karan (by way of script) or Nikhil (by way of direction and final presentation) had very very carefully managed to build up in me till that point. That was very beautifully handled, and though I did well to not let tears run free, I did not really come out heartbroken either :-) , in a way that would discourage me from seeing the movie again etc or want to forget it.So improvement there :) Improvement also in a way, that there seems to be a sprinkling of somethign for everyone in a just right balance that has been so elusive to the best of filmakers. Focus too much on a tight storyline and you end up with a gut wrencher like Aks that is so dark that there is no emotional relief during the 3 hours and the movie doesnt click, or mix one element too many to provide that relief and audiences come out of the theatre wondering where the joker fit into what had potential to be an intense script!!! KHNH seems to have found that balance and people were laughing loudly at the humour, as well as weeping with the emotions :) so that's worked. These are my take aways from the movie, and the things I wanted to focus on in the review becasue everyting else is summarised in the first line -Classic Dharma production. Beautiful locales, wonderful perfomances, superb music and feel good , 'shudh desi ghee main prepared' Indian emotional appeal :)Should definitely work, and take Bollywood one step further in the conventional channel, just as films like KMG are tapping unconventional channels :)