Somebody please complete Abhik Mukhopadhyay's Bhoomi

Who says only women go through labour pain? Ask Anurag Kashyap, who went through hell — over nine years and not nine months of below-the-belt Paanch-es — before delivering Black Friday. And now Abhik Mukhopadhyay is the latest prey. The gifted cinematographer, who is as much responsible for Rituparno Ghosh's cinema as Christopher Doyle is responsible for Wong Kar-Wai's cinema, took the directorial plunge a couple of years back. The film was called Bhoomi. It's written by Devashish Makhija, another talented creator (he does a lot of stuff besides writing). It was Abhik-da's Three Colours, trying to capture India through its tricolour existence across the north, the north-east and centre. He shot a huge chunk of it and then the financiers had other ideas. The film got stuck. Abhik-da even had a 10-minute feel-reel of the movie cut to woo other producers. Everyone went wow at the footage but didn't put the money where their mouths were. Here are those 10 minutes for you. Now, you tell me whether this film deserves to get made or not. 

Pyaar Impossible & Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani better Hadippa & Wanted

This is really sad but very true. Two big movies released today and the two trailers that were shown before/in the middle of the two movies turned out to be better than the full-length features! And I am sure when those two films will release, the trailers that will be shown before/in the middle of them will turn out to be better than the movies.

The trailer of Pyaar Impossible was shown before Dil Bole Hadippa! and you wouldn't expect a  Uday Chopra film to leave a more lasting impression than a Shahid Kapoor movie even if we don't get into the Priyanka Chopra vs Rani Mukerji thingy. Anyway, Pyaar Impossible looks fun and freaky, perhaps what the doctor ordered for Yash Raj.


As for the trailer of Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani, which was shown before Wanted, well, here's a film I have been waiting for ages. Not only because I admire Ranbir and drool over Katrina, but this film is said to take Raj Kumar Santoshi back to his Andaz Apna Apna days. And if the trailer is anything to go by, he is sure around the area. Here's the trailer. Watch it a couple of times and you would want it watch a couple of times more. Exactly what a trailer should be like. Enjoy!

How do Samir Karnik and Nikhil Advani get funding?

Ram Gopal Varma had this amazing idea when he started out as a director. He would make a film and before that got released, he would have already started his next. That was at a time when he wasn't producing films, but only directing them. So he would ensure that he would always have a film up his sleeve even if his new one fails at the box office. That way he would get another crack.

I don't know whether some of the Bolly directors too are following Ramu's footsteps. But I would really like to know how some of them are getting funding. I want to know what Samir Karnik tells a producer when he meets him. He must be doing something right because he has managed to make four films, when he shouldn't have been allowed to make a single one. Read his filmography and you are bound to agree with me — Kyun Ho Gaya Na, Nanhe Jaisalmer, Heroes and Vaada Raha. The last one released last week and despite having Bobby Deol and Kangana Ranaut in the lead, no one turned up to watch it.

Then you have Nikhil Advani. Now, he did start with Kal Ho Naa Ho but by now we all know how much of it was Nikhil and how much of it was Karan Johar. Most pass off KHNH as a KJo flick. Then Nikhil fought with his mentor, directed Salaam-e-Ishq and Chandni Chowk to China. The combined budget of those two films must be over Rs 120 crore. With that amount, Rituparno Ghosh could have made at least 40 films! And at least 39 of them would have been better than Salaam-e-Ishq and CC2C combined. But Nikhil's making another film with Akshay and Anushka Sharma and Patiala House must cost another 40-odd crore.

And Navdeep Singh, who made the memorable Manorama: Six Feet Under, is struggling to get finances for his second film for over three years now. 

Such is life!

The Return of Dev Benegal

For many of us growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, English, August had a lot of firsts. Indian actors speaking in English aside, the way we could peek inside the head of Agastya Sen visually was quite a heady experience. And, of course, Tanvi Azmi. Ok, we will come back to that one. But the point here is Dev Benegal. A filmmaker who changed the perception that Indian actors could act in an English film, talk in their English accent and yet portray the emotions convincingly. The Ivory Merchant films were there but they would always mix the Indian characters with foreign ones. Not Dev.

He followed up the terrific English, August with another very watchable film Split Wide Open which had some great moments besides Laila Roauss. That was in 1999. For the next full decade Dev didn't make anything. Yes imdb says he made a documentary called Shabana but that hardly counts in a feature film filmography. And now the man is back with Road, Movie, exactly 10 years after Split Wide Open. The film is being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. It stars Abhay Deol (two thumbs way up to this actor who is clearly showing the way ahead for every other Bollywood star/actor), Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane) and Satish Kaushik.


If the trailer is anything to go by, this would be a cracker of a film. And I am not the only guy impressed here. At the Cannes film market, where Bollywood biggies like Kites and My Name Is Khan struggled to find a buyer, the leading global sales agent Fortissimo Films picked up the distribution rights of Road, Movie. Let me know what you thought of this one. Enjoy!

Show me your face, you Yash Raj director

What's with these Yash Raj Films directors? Why don't they show their faces? Why don't they talk to the press? I mean, what is your problem? First the big daddy himself — Aditya Chopra — who went missing after Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge's Filmfare triumph night. And now most of his directors are following suit.

I had a lovely chat with Shaad Ali after Saathiya and he spoke really well, talking about little nuances of moviemaking and how he had imbibed them from Mani Sir. That film wasn't with Yash Raj. Then Shaad moved to Yash Raj and when I called him before the release of Bunty Aur Babli, he flatly refused to talk about the film. He was like "it was a great experience making the film... yes, Abhishek and Rani are great... yes Abhik-da is great". Even your Mani Sir talks a lot more! By the time Jhoom Barabar Jhoom came, he was in complete hiding.

Now we have Anurag Singh, the debutant director of Dil Bole Hadippa, who has refused to show up. And who's defending him? Rani Mukerji! "Oh, he is too shy to talk about the film!" God, if the director is too shy to talk about the film, baat kaun karega? Spotboy?! I simply don't under this. It cannot be a clause for all YRF directors because Kabir Khan and Kunal Kohli do talk and maybe because the two KKs talk so much, the other directors have to stay mum! What say? Or are you too shy to say?

Kyunki Kaminey kutti cheez nahin hai

When I talked to my friend Rick recently, I figured out Kaminey had become for him and most of his college mates what Dil Chahta Hai had become for us when we were in college. We would quote lines from the film, have hairstyles like Aamir's Aakash, dance like Saif Ali Khan did in Woh ladki hai kahaan and even try and catch operas. Yes, it was that deep. Now, Dil Chahta Hai has stood the test of time and it's still as loved as it was in 2001.

And that's why I think Kaminey is the wrong film to obsess with. I know I am in a minority now. Besides Khalid Mohamed and myself, every critic in the country have hailed it as our Citizen Kane, our answer to Pulp Fiction and god knows what. I even read someone calling Vishal Bhardwaj a better filmmaker than Quentin Tarantino. Hmmm... The audience hasn't lapped it up. Kaminey has doen better than Omkara but that's not saying much. Let's forget the box office, which even rejected a film like Luck By Chance (my fave film of 2009 till now). Let's just take a look at the problems I have with Kaminey and if you disagree, I would love to hear from you. That's why the comment box is there, below.

First confession: I do like Kaminey. It's quite a good watch. There are lovely moments in the film. Some great performances, especially Shahid, Chandan, Priyanka, Amol... I love the background score, which plays around Dhan te nan. And I admire the cinematography by Tasadduq Hussain. It's deliciously dark and super heady.

I think in a film like Kaminey which is basically a multi-character thriller laced with dark humour, every character has to be bloody unique. If you look at Tarantino's films and a few of Coen Brothers' flicks, which belong to the same genre, the characters make the movie.

Just take Kill Bill. Now Lucy Liu is just two chapters in the 10-chapter film. And she must have a total of one page of dialogues. And hoe does Tarantino set O Ren Ishii up? She is a Chinese-Japanese-American who saw her parents murdered at age nine and now runs the Tokyo Yakuza. She has 44 bodyguards who call themselves the Crazy 88. And she is super-touchy about her ancestry and can take your head if you have a problem with that.

Let's move to Reservoir Dogs - Michael Madsen's Mr Blonde. The Daily Telegraph in an article describes the character as "Besuited alpha male, particularly famed for impromptu ear-severing. A charming psychopath who likes to simmer and sit tight. Perks up when obscure Dylan-esque Seventies pop hits come on the radio and has a habit of flicking away cigarette butts just before something really nasty happens. Approach with due trepidation."

Let's tighten it further. John Turturro's Jesus in The Big Lebowski by the Coens. He has one scene in the film and you know everything about him. That he is the best bowler around. That he does a Hotel California jig before and after his bowling act. That he was once a peder-ass and had to go door to door in Hollywood to tell everyone he was a peder-ass!

Now, tell me one character in Kaminey whom you know something about. Okay, three Bengali mental brothers who play around with guns. Well if they are from the underworld, that's what they will do. Isn't it? Mikhail, such an important character in the film, what do we know about him? That he snorts coke. That's it? Yes, that's it. And he is not even made to look different. In fact, in the rain scene, it gets difficult to identify which one's Shahid and which one's Chandan.

The other villains... Lobo and Lele. Okay, one talks less and the other talks more. What else? What else? I can't think of. Can you?

Bhope Bhau... This character was getting interesting. There was some work behind it. He is a baddie turning politician by chanting Jai Maharashtra. So when he actually agreed to take money from Shahid and switch to another party, it really made him slyly sinister. But then he wanted to take out Shahid after getting the money. Lo kar lo baat! Ctrl + z, we call it.

The worst ones? Tashi and his sidekick. That is vintage Bollywood. He sits and smokes pipe. He doesn't like dogs, he liked bitches. Come on!

When you start thinking which actor is good and which actor is not, that means the character hasn't worked. Even if you look at Charlie and Guddu, the stress is mostly on the way they talk, on the lisp and the stammer. There is a back story, there is a dream sequence but you only go back with the 'main f ko f bolta hoon'. That's a stylistic device, not a character detail. Character details are what is totally missing in Kaminey and stops it short from a great film. I am not getting into the complicated exposition, the disjointed edit and all that. Just the characters... they do not belong to the world Vishal wanto create. We all know they are supposed to be 'bad' and they are all after the cocaine and the diamonds and the money but give us the little chewy details. The best scene of the film is when Shahid has to sing his story to Lobo and Lele. And that again is about the speech.

That's why Kaminey failed me. It tells us it's smart but then turns out to be totally Bollywood. For that, I prefer Om Shanti Om. Unpretentious and totally enjoyable.

The National Award winners for 2007

Ok, we got you inside info on Saturday. Here's a bigger list of winners as officially announced today. Will update it as more information trickles out.

• Best Film: Kanchivaram
• Best Film for Wholesome Entertainment: Chak De! India
• Best Film Grand Jury Award: Gandhi My Father
• Best Family Welfare Film: Taare Zameen Par
• Best Film (Hindi): 1971 
• Best Director: Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Nallu Pennungal 
• Best Screenplay: Feroz Abbas Khan, Gandhi My Father
• Best Actor: Prakash Raj, Kanchivaram 
• Best Actress: Uma Shree, Gulabi Talkies  
• Best Child Actor: Sharad Goyekar, Tingya)
• Best Supporting Actor: Darshan Zariwalla, Gandhi My Father
• Best Supporting Actress: Shefali Shah, The Last Lear
• Best Music: Ousepacham, Ore Kadal
• Best Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi, Maa, Taare Zameen Par
• Best Male Playback Singer: Shankar Mahedavan, Maa, Taare Zameen Par
• Best Female Playback Singer: Shreya Ghoshal, Yeh ishq hai, Jab We Met 
• Best Film on National Integration: Dharm

Meanwhile, read the interview I did with Priyadarshan when Kanchivaram was chosen for the Toronto International Film Festival exactly a year back...

How does it feel to have your film premiered at Toronto?

Damn good! Kanjivaram is obviously different from my usual films. It’s also selected for Pusan and has also been invited in Berlin now. So I am feeling good. This is the first time I tried a film like this and it’s been appreciated so much.

You haven’t done something so serious and thought provoking since Sazaa-e-Kalapaani?

Basically, even Sazaa-e-Kalapaani and Virasat were made as commercial films. This time I made sure that I wasn’t bothered how the film runs and all. This time I wanted to be much more true to the film. And I really made it as a very realistic film and never did I compromise anywhere for the masses.

You have been planning Kanjivaram for a long time...

Yes, nine years I kept the film with me. But nobody wanted to make it. They all thought that I should rather make them money. Only I wanted to make this film. Finally, thanks to Percept... because I made a few successful films for them, they agreed to fund this film for me.

How can the maker of loud comedies like Bhagam Bhag and Dhol and Malamaal Weekly make a subtle film like Kanjivaram?

Kanjivaram is an extremely subtle film. It is slow as well but it holds and it touches your heart. The thing is I like all kind of films. And I like to make all those kinds of films. I enjoy documentaries, I enjoy cartoons, I enjoy realistic movies. I watched all the films by Satyajit Ray, I watched all the films by Mrinal Sen, I watched Ritwik Ghatak and Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Now, there is a director inside me which I really wanted to satisfy. For that director I made this film. Otherwise Bollywood is paying me good money. There are two needs in a director like me. Sometimes you need fame and money. Sometimes you need recognition. I made Kanjivaram only for recognition.

The storyline sounds fascinating... Was it inspired from real life?

It is written by me. It’s pure irony, that is what I based it on. It’s about a weaver who weaves a lot of silk in his life but cannot weave a silk sari for himself. The film is set from the 1920s to 1940s when communism came to India through textile mill trade unions. Kanjivaram is not an anti-communist film but an analysis on why communism didn’t work at many places in the country.

Do you think communism couldn’t handle the Singur situation properly?

What is happening today is all personal attention and benefit. I feel that all the ideologists, not only communists, preach the ideology just for their benefits but they never practice it in their own lives. That’s why an ideology fails. In my film also, what is happening is that the weaver has two dreams. One is to get his daughter married in a silk sari. And the other is to instigate a revolt against the mill owners who rule over the workers like feudal lords. When he shuts down the factory, he knows he cannot anymore steal silk threads from the factory. So the marriage will stop and his promise of 16 years will not be fulfilled. It is then that he cheats the workers. He turns Brutus... he makes a speech to the workers like a Mark Anthony speech. What does the original speech say? It is not that Brutus didn’t love Caeser but he loved Rome more. Like that it’s not that the weaver did not support communism but he loved his daughter more.

Why did you not make the film in Hindi?

Because Kanchipuram is a Tamil-speaking place, no? If I do the film in Hindi, I wouldn’t be doing justice to the film. My first intention was to be as true to the subject as possible and not think of any commercial benefits. The film won’t even be dubbed in Hindi... maybe released with subtitles. This kind of film is for a certain kind of audience, not for everyone.

Why did you pick Prakash Raj for the main role?

I was looking for an actor who would actually spend time with me on the film. There are three periods in his life. So instead of people going grey by putting colour in their hair, I wanted him to lose hair. So I shot the film in order. We started by shaving off his head.

He co-operated very much. Also apart from Prakash Raj, all other actors I took from street plays.

Having done a Kanjivaram was it easy to go back to a Billo Barber in Bollywood?

That is what I really like. When I showed the film to people like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani, they asked me how did you switch over from this to that. So I said that there is this one switch with which I can switch from here to there. I am very sure why I am making a certain kind of film when I am making it. When the creator has the clarity why he is making a film, I don’t think there is any problem.

Will you make more films like Kanjivaram?

Definitely. This film has been very inspiring and I definitely intend to make more of them.

Gandhi My Father bags three National Awards

BREAKING NEWS: Gandhi My Father has won three National Awards (for the year 2007) — Best Film (Anil Kapoor), Best Screenplay (Feroz Abbas Khan) and Best Supporting Actor (Darshan Zariwalla). It was one of my favourite films of 2007 and all the awards are truly deserved. Akshaye Khanna should consider himself unlucky for missing out on the Best Actor Award. It has gone to Prakash Raj for Priyadarshan's Kanchivaram. Who won the rest of the awards? Watch this space for more. Meanwhile read my review of Gandhi My Father

August 15, 1947: As the whole country rejoiced at their newfound independence, one Indian was more interested in the sweets that were being distributed and not the flags with them.
That was the “tryst with destiny” of Harilal Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a streetside beggar by the time Nehru was announcing India’s arrival to the world.
As a father-son story, Feroz Abbas Khan’s Gandhi My Father is not very different from Ramesh Sippy’s Shakti but it is the historical backdrop which turns everything upside down. In fact, there is so much of shock value in the going-ons that Khan (also the writer) has to deliberately jam the brakes on the pace to help the audience soak it all in.
The inner angst of Junior Gandhi — that’s what Harilal was called in Phoenix Settlement in South Africa — was so deep that he would try to change his future by changing religions as fast as he changed his clothes and appearances. But it was the past he couldn’t rid himself of. “Mera itihas lambi hai aur bhugol gol,” he cries in despair.
Thanks to a father who would “define the meaning of independence and then set its parameters”, Harilal was lost in his lineage. As years passed, he kept getting tonked around back and forth from South Africa to India and internally things got so bitter that at one point of time he says: “Whenever I fail, he (Gandhi) succeeds.”
But interestingly, they would both come back to each other from time to time looking for redemption. Harilal would first seek Gandhi’s permission, then his money and then even his identity. He almost tells himself: “I’m Gandhi’s son; how can I cheat?” Gandhi, on the other hand, realises that he could have done so much more for his elder son but cannot take out time to do so. In a telling scene, he asks Harilal to come back to him but, as the train rolls out of the station, he has to leave him there.
Yes, producer Anil Kapoor is right — this is a story that had to be told. And told with the responsibility that Feroz Khan brings on board. You can feel an overtone of Mahatma Gandhi’s insensitivity towards his son but the director never screams it out. Because he comes from a rich background of theatre, Khan’s script tends to become episodic in parts. But the stage-to-screen switch works with the stress on physical acting by the main players. Feroz also uses close-ups of on-lookers to great effect.
Harilal is Akshaye Khanna and not the other way round. Letting go of his familiar dimpled chuckles, Akshaye sinks into the role seamlessly. And the scene when he comes shivering home to his dead wife looks set to become one of the finest pieces of acting in the history of Indian cinema.
Darshan Zariwalla is so effective as Gandhi that you never miss Sir Ben Kingsley, which is quite an achievement. Even Shefali Shah and Bhoomika Chawla are knockouts as the ladies caught in the middle. Another hero of the enterprise is cinematographer David McDonald who uses natural lighting and colour schemes to great effect.
The silhouettes stay with you and so does the lingering question: Was Gandhigiri a fool-proof
formula?