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Ribbon (2017)
Ribbon breathes realism in every frame - will go down as an underrated beauty!
Ribbon is a subtly played yet on-your-face act of life that does not yell melodrama for a minute and breathes realism in every frame! In fact, it is a poignant and matured study of life's struggles in the Maximum City (or for that matter any other city) where young working couples go through the grinding ups and downs of life and its various shades and yet keep going on, just like a rolling reel of a ribbon!
The film works very effectively on multiple fronts:
-> This slice of life cinema tells the tale as a matter of fact without getting judgemental about why certain things happen or whose onus is it. These are characters very relatable, they are not perfect, they struggle, they lose their cool, they stand by each other as rock solid support when needed, and they also fight with each other with wild outbursts of all resentments every couple would have gone through! Co- writers Rakhee Sandilya and Rajeev Upadhyay keep all the proceedings extremely grounded and hence connect this couple to the audience right through all the trials and tribulations that they go through from beginning to end. Yes, there are scenes where the monotony of life shows up and one feels nothing much is happening, but isn't that what life is about?
-> Shoutout for the excellent work by Rakhee Sandilya, the director and her entire team! The camera work through handhelds, the neat production design gives a great sense of the cramped urban spaces, or creeky creches, reputed schools, small but thriving corporate firms and everything surrounding them! The wardrobe and styling of the leads is contemporary and is totally in sync with the tone of the film! The background score is measured and sparse as needed! The editing is lazy in parts, but I did not find the film stretched or slow for a moment! Rakhee keeps it all under her control throughout, and sucks you in to her story.
-> The biggest success of Rakhee though is the amazing performance that she extracts out of Kiearra Soni, the little child! Your heart will go out to her innocence and unadulterated smile as the story unfolds! Aashi is the hidden treasure of the film! Does not matter so much that the other side-characters don't have much to do, or can match up to this wonderful little girl or her parents!
-> And then, we have these powerhouse performances by both Kalki Koechlin and Sumeet Vyas, who bring everything to life in Ribbon! Kalki outshines her own self in a fully author backed role, and delivers one of her best performances here! Her face and her eyes is this vivid canvas of emotions that expresses everything without effort and that is what differentiates her from the rest! But, full marks to Sumeet Vyas too - he actually gets a character arch that is not fully developed in comparison and yet excels matching up to Kalki frame by frame! I hope to see him in meatier roles in many more films to come!
If cinema means a slice of life reflection for you where problems not necessarily come to a well-defined closure, but leaves you moved and disturbed; then do give Ribbon its due! Relevant films like these ought to be made and discussed, and for that to happen, they need to be watched! Go - Watch it!
Secret Superstar (2017)
High on melodrama, low on impact - could have been so much better!
There is indeed a secret star in this year's diwali release by Aamir Khan and Advait Chandan! No, I am not talking about Zaira Wasim or Meher Vij, but about this lovely boy called Tirth Sharma who gives a brilliantly natural and the most subtle performance in the film! Its a pleasure watching his expressions and honest portrayal of a lovely friend, and the scenes between him and Zaira are some of the best I liked in the overall film!
At his extreme other end is the real superstar, Mr. Aamir Khan, who just delivers a knockout act with the sleazy over the top Shakti Kumarr, who is as cheesy as it can get, but he just lets it all down and makes you literally laugh out loud, every time he is on the screen! Drawing inspirations from Himesh in real life and Taal's Anil Kapoor in reel life, Aamir just blows you away like a rockstar, salute to his versatility in pulling off this after the much nuanced Dangal! I actually stopped over to watch his funny last song, along with the rest of the theatre, and left with a broad smile!
And now lets talk about the Maliks! At the end of it, the story actually revolves around them - this girl called Insia, and the 2 very important characters in her life who have a diametrically opposite influence on her - a mother who is her life, and a father she wishes was dead (and vice versa)! As the parents, I felt that Raj Arjun hits the nail with his Farookh! He lets you hate him without resorting to any over the top exaggerated or loud performance, but is chilling and venomous enough with his speaking eyes, cold gestures and well nuanced act! It is sad then that the mother and the daughter characters are written in a way that is overtly emotional and in fact even somewhat manipulative in the drama to make it a forced tear jerker! I did like Meher Vij in most parts, she looks very honest, tries to deliver honestly as well, but the script does not help her! And it does not help Zaira Wasim too! Frankly, Zaira looks and acts way too much more maturedly than what this character demanded in my opinion, and in the process compromises on the spontaneity of the fifteen year old daughter completely! I could not help but compare with the extremely natural and endearing bond played out by Swara Bhaskar and Ria Shukla as mother daughter in Nil Battey Sannata which felt so much more genuine and heartfelt in that setup! In spite of all the drama and forced emotions here, somewhere this pain does not touch you and that is where I felt the connect missing big time in this film!
Rather than this bond, I found the film doing much more justice in depicting the anxiety, reactions, and everything else that is a teenage thing! Insia the teenager and her growing up vulnerabilities, her excitement after her first laptop, or first social media upload, her selfish dreams, her exchanges with Chintan (Tirth) and the extremely lovable Guddu (Kabir Sajid) will stay back with me much longer than the otherwise predictable drama!
What will also not stay back is unfortunately the music that should have been the backbone of the film! Meghna Mishra is a great find, but a big problem with the songs is the somewhat weak lyrics, and the accompanying loud music overpowering Meghna's powerful voice in almost all songs! Sad!
In summary, no surprises there in the film from what the trailer suggested. It is a predictable emotional drama with some good performances, and is well timed for the family audience of Diwali! Aamir Khan the producer has certainly cracked the code on how to deliver entertainment for the masses banking on emotions! How I wish Advait Chandan's writing and direction had the power to support him as strongly as well! I felt letdown on the whole!
Newton (2017)
Undertated brilliance - Dark satire - Must watch
Pankaj Tripathy as Atma Ram, the cynical BSF officer posted in the remote areas of Dandakaranya who wants peace by hook or crook and has his own view of how the system should behave, is the real Atma or Soul of #Newton! An antithesis to the film's protagonist Newton Kumar, he represents the harsh but real picture of administration in our country, where the circus of democracy is the biggest farce, and where life has taught him that there is only so much that one can stretch in the name of duty! Tripathy just nails down Atma Ram to perfection and just about steals the real thunder from Rajkumar Rao as the best thing about the film!
That however does not take any credit away from Rajkumar Rao either! Rao is in fine form yet again and gets his Newton Kumar to play the complete non pretentious idealistic election officer who follows everything by the rule book and how! The honesty on his face reflects in every shot, sometimes a tad too self consciously, but the principles do not wither even if that means putting your life to risk for a day's mundane job!
Tripathy and Rao are brilliantly supported by the extremely powerful enacts by Raghubeer Yadav, Anjali Patil and Sanjay Mishra, all of whom are representative of life seen through different perspectives and experiences! The entire ensemble is such a powerhouse of talent that none of them appear playing their parts even for a moment, they just naturally feel their parts to the core and never appear boring or preachy for a second!
And that is where the brilliance of Newton lies! None of these characters are fully right or wrong, there are no pronounced antagonists or villains here; neither is there any build up to a high voltage climax, and there is no pretentious attempt to find solutions to all the pertinent questions that the film raises throughout! It just remains a terrific understated satire or mockery on our democracy, zooming into the inconsequential existence of a bunch of tribal villagers who flee for their lives when chased, and try to figure out what's in it for them if they vote because anyway they know that nothing is going to change for them! The black humor also does not spare the yellow journalism that goes on in the name of media reporting where most of the things fed to the viewers sitting hundreds of miles away is precisely choreographed and neatly presented, and is provided solid backing by law and administration!
Kudos to director Amit Masurkar, and writer Mayank Tiwari (along with Masurkar) for having the vision to create a deeply perceptive drama and gift us one of best films of the year! Aided by some fantastic background score (there was also a tribute to Ray through the music at a point), and some of the best dialogues heard in a long time, Newton is certainly worth its Oscar nomination for a change (and I don't care much even if it is inspired)!
Its an extremely important film relevant to our times that every responsible citizen must watch and internalize! After all, every great action certainly deserves an equally strong and solid reaction from the audience in the true Newtonian way!!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php? story_fbid=1916046885388941&id=1751837525143212
Chhaya O Chhobi (2017)
This chhobi has very little chhaya of its prolific director!
Overall #ChhayaOChhobi is an okayish one time watch... But it just does not have the texture and feel of a #KaushikGanguly film, and that is a Big disappointment in itself! Especially when he had hit the bull's eye with his last outing in Bisorjon..
A film within a film, and that too in the serene lap of Darjeeling - the possibilities could have been endless here, but Kaushik barely scratches the surface, and does not get into the depths of the different shades of grey that he tries to build up on.. And that is clearly an opportunity lost!
The film is strengthened by a terrific Ritwick Chakraborty (who by his sheer talent just relegates every other character to the background!), the beautifully nostalgic Darjeeling and Dooars (though its kind of tragic that you go to such locations and set up most of the scenes indoors or within the hotel confines!), some great musical score (some of the songs like Ekla ekla & Chhera drawing khata will really stay with you!), and a more than decent Abir Chatterjee (who also benefits because he hardly has scenes with Ritwick and hence does not get chewed up completely!)
But the film equally suffers heavily by the rather inconsistent Koel Mallik which is a big issue since her Rai Chatterjee needed the strongest enact on screen for the film to find its grip, a pretty weak supporting cast including Churni Ganguly, Barun Chanda and Priyanka Sarkar all of whom overact so much more than needed, a somewhat loose and poorly edited screenplay which is usually the highest point of Kaushik's movies, and an even weaker ending which could have been so much more, but just isn't satisfying enough!
There is so much to explore in the world of cinema and in the people who live that life, their stardom, their human emotions, their insecurities and everything around it.. Unfortunately, while Kaushik lays the foundation and peeks into that 'life that is so much more melodramatic than cinema', he just does not develop that with the same finesse and clarity of thought which we have seen so often from him in some of his other ventures!
We have enough directors who can make a Chhaya O Chhobi or a Bastushap, but we need to get back the Kaushik Ganguly who and only who can make a Khaad, a Bisorjon, a Shabdo, an Arekti Premer Galpo or an Apur Panchali! We will be waiting... !!
Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017)
This barfi is sweet and addictive!
#AshwiniIyerTiwari - Thank you for taking us back to good old feel-good origins of Basu Chatterjee and Sai Paranjape, and getting inspired by the likes of 'Chhoti si Baat', 'Baaton baaton me' and 'Katha' !! #BareillyKiBarfi is a similar gharana of film-making where simple stories about simple people are told simply, punched in with clean humor and wittiest of dialogues, where the characters feel real with multiple shades of grey, where we all know what the end will be but the journey to that end is as charming and endearing as its characters! Through Chirag Dubey, Pritam Vidrohi and Bitti Mishra, one finds great mix and match of Katha's Rajaram, Sandhya and Bashudev; with Chhoti si Baat's Arun, Prabha and Nagesh; its the same nostalgia of crooked sweetness.. While the Rosie Parreira of Baaton Baaton Mein finds her bosom sister in Sushila Mishra of Bareilly! And the lovely sweet bond between Mishra'ji and his Bitti is right made out of the dad's Lovela Sweets!
There is some very good writing going on here by Nitesh Tiwari to deliver some of the best dialogues of the year with some brilliant scenes, and extremely well cast crew all of whom are in top form and do full justice to the well written characters - yes including Kriti Sanon! Pankaj Tripathi and Seema Pahwa are extremely adorable as Bitti's worried parents in their own ways, and their daughter Bitti finds her flight through a very balanced performance by Kriti! Yes, she does not give you a chance to think how a Parineeti or an Alia would have delivered this Bitti! But the real pillars of the movie are - the ever charming but the first time ever 'neech' and scheming Ayushman Khurana, and the seamless dual punch Rajkumar Rao who by the way 'character pakad ke chal rahe the'! These guys are indeed the effortless Amol Palekar and Farookh Sheikh of today with the modern day twist, who get every accent, every emotion, and every expression right just through their speaking eyes!
Technically - in addition to the great writing, the production design gets it fully right, the music is catchy (although a couple of songs do appear stretch), and the screenplay could have been a shade tighter especially in the second half.. But superb performances from the entire ensemble keep the story moving thru a very enjoyable ride.. It was great to see a houseful screen for a film with no big cast.. surely the movie is gaining from some good word of mouth publicity, more power to such well made cinema!
Ashwini - you should have actually named the film - Bareilly ki Jalebi! For sure, its as juicy, sweet and addictive as the twisted delicacy!
Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (2017)
Good attempt - could have been a lot more...
Hindi cinema has come a long way with #ShubhMangalSavdhaan.. One could not imagine the topic of erectile dysfunction being dealt with in a full length feature film even a few years back.. And thanks to some wonderful writing by Hitesh Kewalya and a matured direction by RS Prasanna, the film does not get into the realms of tacky or sleazy even for a minute in spite of its central theme.. Rather it offers some real witty humor and sharp dialogs that deliver the message with all the pun intended and yet remains aesthetic.. What works well is the setup that is created by a bunch of very real common people characters portrayed adeptly by the lead cast and the entire ensemble surrounding them! And Yet, I was tad disappointed because I was expecting the film to be so much more, and it had everything going to actually get there!
The full review is available at: https://m.facebook.com/story.php? story_fbid=1902625906731039&id=1751837525143212
Asha Jaoar Majhe (2014)
A classic in its own right!
#AshaJaoarMajhe completely justifies the supreme appeal and essence of the word 'Chalochitro'... Where the universal language of labor of love is best communicated through the mundane silent chores of daily living... where the small and big pauses during the day would echo so much louder than what a thousand dialogues would have attempted to speak...
Director Aditya Vikram Sengupta's style of film making shows a deep influence of Ray, and the way he stitches together moments significantly apart in the script is a very detailed study on the cycle of longing and pattern that life engulfs us in! There is some brilliant camera work going on here along with a superb audiography, and add to that the absolutely natural and finely measured performances by both Ritwick Chakraborty and Basabdutta Chatterjee, and we see a wonderful lyrical ballad created on celluloid that has no action or event to show but a lot of emotions and feelings to tell...
One may find at times though that the style is being played too heavy and the content could have balanced it to an extent, but I think that the film-maker wanted us to feel exactly that and hits bull's eye with it.. At under ninety minutes, the pace of the motion picture can test you at times if you don't get adjusted to it by the first ten minutes or so.. I am glad that the rhythm synced in with me very quickly and it only amplified from there as one got swept away with the journey of these two characters who have no names, who are just me and you...
#AshaJaoarMajhe #PoetryOnCelluloid #ThirdVantagePoint
https://m.facebook.com/story.php? story_fbid=1909551149371848&id=1751837525143212
Jagga Jasoos (2017)
Magical ride back to childhood - rich cinematic pleasure!
They say that the world of charismatic cinema is one that transports you to another world, another time, another feel - however fantastical that world, time or feel might be. With that as the referential point, Jagga Jasoos is cinematic opulence at its grandest, sometimes way too grand bordering on over-indulgence! But when was the last time in Bollywood that you were taken out of your cynical self, and transported to the magical and innocent world of your childhood, to 'Jhumritalaiyya' and 'Timbaktoo', that gets so deliciously garnished with Tintin's adventures, Felu'das 'tiktiki', Ray's world of Gupi & Bagha from 'Shundi' to 'baagh mama' to skies eventually opening up to sumptuous sweet treats, to double headed monsters, to Disney's magic kingdoms and animal worlds and what not! And kudos to Anurag Basu for daring to dream about that extravagant canvas, experimenting with two brand new themes for bollywood - one a fully developed musical, and two the comic strip style of narration; bringing it all together in extremely imaginative and detailed out frames and getting it right.. well almost!
The first half of the film is pure delight and the lovely chemistry drawn out between Ranbir Kapoor and Shaswata Chatterjee is easily the best thing about the movie.. Moments like father son duo jumping innocently on mud puddles or Jagga's first musical speech lessons from Tooti Footi will stay on for very long with you for their beautiful portrayal... Its a tragedy then that this very core actually gets lost amidst the other ambitious but messy ideas of Basu in the larger part of the film and we are left wanting for so much more of that spark.. The second half has way too much going on, and the editing there loses its grip and logic in multiple places, a part of which Basu possibly thought can be blamed on the comic strip style of storytelling and be gotten away with! But alas that does not happen and does water down the very strong first half that the film creates riding on that super cool skater bike of Jagga!
One never gets bored though - so breathtaking is the cinematic experience with Ravi Verman's opulent camera work right from the rich colorful visual treat on a vibrant canvas to the haphazard brisk camera navigation amidst crowded setups to capture the intended chaos, and the brilliant musical experiments by Pritam and Amitabha Bhattacharya duo who really push the envelop far beyond what we have seen in more traditional bollywood! Yes, the editing could have been much crisper and some of the gaping holes in the script should not have been allowed to stay as they are, especially how Shruti continues all that action in the climax with that plastered hand for so long! On the other hand, there are scattered screenplay inspirations drawn from Barfi along with multiple other Ray masterpieces, Tintins, Holmes, Harry Potters and what not, but it still appears like nice fresh treatment overall with strong subtle tributes!
Performance wise, Ranbir Kapoor is in absolute top form and he makes Jagga and himself one and the same! He is such a natural that his stutter also never feels caricaturish, and he almost passes off as the school boy as well through all his innocence and genuinely heartfelt performance. He ensures that Katrina does not have much to do and can pass off amicably looking cute and acting funny.. Sashwata Chatterjee is brilliant for the screen time he gets which is unfairly too less for his talent.. Rajatava Dutta lends solid support.. Saurabh Shukla could have done more with his meaty character... Overall they all come together as one strong well coordinated ensemble!
Its such a shame then that the Indian cinegoer is not yet ready to appreciate such bold experimentation and kills a franchise even before it gets created.. The movie ends with a perfect pretext and cue for a sequel, which unfortunately will never get made anymore! Which is sad and a big loss - because very few movies have the power to constantly make you smile through its entire length, and Anurag Basu and his world of Jagga succeeded in doing just that for me - magically, musically, whimsically and cinematically!
Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016)
Of dreams and despair - but succumbs to clichés
Lipstick Under My Burkha is not a perfect film... Far from it actually... But this is an important film that leaves one happy, sad and disappointed at same time...
Happy - because Alankrita Srivastava dared to navigate through a subject that is usually a taboo to be even discussed openly by women, and does that skillfully without resorting to titillation or sleaze, rather using interesting metaphors throughout the script.. she dared to dream just like she wants the Rosie in each of her four protagonists to dream and live that life..
Sad - because here are four very ordinary women presented with their day to day struggle to even live a life of little common pleasures, where they are all strangulated to even dream, where they and many around them are all living dual lives and making peace with it not attempting to change anything because they possibly know its not worth the effort..
Disappointed - because this story told could have been so much more. Disappointed because the script resorts to a clunky end of using the clichéd smoking metaphor as an equivalent of liberation and sisterhood bonding. Disappointed because the script still appears forced and jarring at times to drive home some subtle points. Disappointed because it still takes a pseudo feminist stand in places showing mostly one dimensional male characters, and does not work enough on the script to make it smooth and integrated enough. Disappointed because the film still seems more focused on impressing the festivals circuits, rather than telling a simple story simply.
The film benefits immensely by getting the cast right though.. Ratna Pathak Shah is outstanding as the gutsy Usha Parmar and is the lifeline of this story.. Konkona Sen Sharma is extremely good too as expected.. I found these two stories much stronger than the other two personally, though Aahana Kumra and Plabita Borthakur perform well too.. Ahana's Leela and her track was the most defocused and weak in my opinion though..
Overall, there is a lipstick and a burkha that exists in the life of every woman and a shade of Rosie who lives deep beneath every soul, and this film will drag them out from the dark closets of everyone.. triggering identification to one or more of these characters.. and creating moments that are impactful.. Well done Alankrita for showing that courage..
How I wish though that an idea like this could get a much tighter treatment and finer finishing that could have made it as haunting a film as the subject demanded.. Sigh!
Mom (2017)
Drama over sensitivity, an opportunity lost!
Mom could have been a much better film! For most part of it, it is loud, shrill and too filmy that spoils it from becoming a dark, disturbing, and hard hitting film! One, you have seen this too many times before; Two, the script has way too many gaping holes throughout, quite unpardonable for a thriller; and Three, there is way too much of screeching background score in the film (other than the crime scene) that just dilutes the gravity of the film at the most crucial junctures!
Here is a screenplay that is written from A to Z only keeping the Mom in mind, so much so that the agony, the trauma, and the cringing horrific experience that the daughter goes through somewhat gets relegated to the background! Which is hugely disappointing, because frankly its Sajal Ali who is the find of the film and is outstanding amidst a bunch of very fine actors! She speaks with her eyes in every shot she gets and never delivers a false note! Its a shame that she does not get more screen time!
Sridevi of course makes full use of the script modeled for her and hits sixers in scenes with minimal dialogues just through her eyes, facial emotions and body language. Unfortunate again that she gets some very filmy dialogues to possibly garner more audience claps, but where she falters the most is where she had to howl and scream per the script - way too dramatic and not fitting in to the character of Devaki! Also, we all know that she is too strong an actor - the script did not need to sacrifice sketching all the other characters to their needed depth, to get her all the screen-time and prove her acting prowess again.. She could actually have been much more impactful the other way round!
And hence, most of the rest of the cast don't get very well developed roles! Nawazuddin Siddiqui is such a powerhouse of talent that he does not need the gimmick of a separate unrecognizable getup to stand out, and kind of gets wasted in a poorly sketched role! Akshay should have also got more meat to his role again, but does a great job with whatever little he gets and has a delicious screen presence! Adnan Siddiqui is apt for his part, but the bad guys actually overdo it and don't leave a mark! As already mentioned, the music by AR Rehman is a big disappointment! First time director Ravi Udayavar has miles to go before he can make a better next film!
Overall, a rather disappointing and underwhelming experience.. May be because the expectations were so high, both from the actress and the film! Drama over sensitivity, Shrill over Trauma, Noise over dark discomfort - and hence an opportunity lost!