"You only live twice:
Once when you're born,
And once when you look death in the face."
Once when you're born,
And once when you look death in the face."
-- James Bond's failed attempt at writing haiku, in Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice
Monday, October 31, 2005
Sunday, October 16, 2005
PAGE 3 piffle
Earlier this year, I made the sad mistake of watching a film called 'Page 3'. I compounded my error by spending money on tickets and seeing it in a theatre and was crucified for the above sins by being forced to see it from the front row. I wrote a review of this film shortly after having watched it at PVR Saket, New Delhi, reproduced below for the benefit of anyone contemplating the film's purchase on VCD/DVD.
PAGE 3 reviewed
You know what the problem with Bollywood is?
The interval. An arbitrary insertion of a fifteen-minute break just as things are getting interesting so that people don’t have to hold back the dam any more and so that the snack counter stays in business.
What it basically boils down to is that every film that comes out of Bombay is actually two different films soldered together so that the exhibitor has one feature-length product to market.
First the setup, then the denouement. As in any other film in any other language, you say?
Except that in Bollywood, the first half is the hook. The part with all the fun, the flesh, the music, and the have-a-good-time-you-did-pay-the-price-of-admission feel to it.
Then comes the dramatic incident that is underscored by gongs and/or kettledrums in the background as the screen goes black and INTERMISSION appears on screen. (It seems INTERVAL isn’t a serious enough word.)
And then, in the second half, all mirth and mazaa disappear. Characters experience internal conflicts, flex their thespian muscles, and either redeem themselves or are destroyed.
Which brings us to PAGE 3. A simplistic examination of modern-day mores and manners, the reality and evils of tinsel town (shocking!), and the ugliness that lurks beneath the skin of Bombay’s Beautiful People.
PAGE 3 comes to you from the creative mind of Madhur Bhandarkar, the man who yanked away the curtains that hid the bump-and-grind of CHANDNI BAR.
PAGE 3 is a ludicrous take on modern day mores, manners and the superficiality that constitutes life in Tinsel Town. In lieu of strong characters, director Madhur Bhandarkar resorts to bland stereotypes that make inane conversation with each other over the course of the film’s two-and-a-half hours. To wit: Delhi’s well-known cross-dressing hairdresser Sylvie is reincarnated as a grotesque fashion designer who whines about being denied the use of the ladies’ room in Ladakh; veteran theatre artist Dolly Thakore does a salt-and-pepper coiffured Shobhaa De; and various other high-society types appear as themselves or something like it.
The film is almost pornographic in its monotonous repetition of party scenes, pulsing dance numbers and cutaways of a bemused-looking Konkona Sen Sharma.
Desperately phobic about people who speak English and girls who stay out late at night, the film manifests its disapproval through vapid teenagers who call a rampaging cop a ghati – to which he responds by stunning them into silence with the revelation that he graduated in English literature! Then follows a lecture on how one should first be Indian, then try and be Western (with a helpful “Hmmm?” for effect).
Since it’s 2005, Nirupa Roy’s ghost is exorcized by the casting of Soni Razdan in the role of long-suffering mother. Razdan agonizes over how she can’t control her daughter – it seems the little terror comes home late and even – gasp! – stays over at a friend’s place sometimes. Cue a shushing by her too-busy-having-sex-with-ten-year-olds-to-care-about-you-and-your-problems husband Nassar Abdulla (who used to make a decent living endorsing Archies Cards and Ceat Tyres in the Innocent Eighties), accompanied by sad music to manipulate you into feeling sorry for her.
The scenes at the rave party where the drug bust takes place are almost surreal in their lack of authenticity – mindless youths throb mindlessly in time to the mindless rhythms that are playing as they mindlessly consume drugs. (Ah, so any time somebody takes drugs, their immediate response is to flutter their eyelids like a pharaoh rising from the dead and look like you were once an extra on HARE RAMA HARE KRISHNA.)
Technical incompetence joins the party too, just for fun. Abominable lip synching combines with atrocious dubbing, even for the actors who’ve done their own voices.
The film also has a quasi-philosophical theme song to move things along, any time the assistant forgot to deliver the day’s shooting script. No, thankfully the words “Page Three” are missing from its lyrics…it just features Lata Mangeshkar crooning “Kitne ajeeb rishte hain yahan pe” and can usually be heard anytime there’s a nubile young starlet being seduced or when the earnest Konkona is pondering her place in the universe.
Other stereotypes/clichés present and accounted for: bearded, khadi-clad Hindi journalist; solid, honest, denim-wearing crusader-scribe; transition from miniskirt to salwar-kameez on change of heart; ‘liberated girl’ smokes and is a Christian to boot; green journalist and female Konkona is shown the path of righteousness and truth by plain-talking but kind male Atul Kulkarni; when a boy and a girl have sex, it’s always because the boy forced the issue; foreigners are funny animals, usually evil, mercifully not called ‘Mr. John’ in this film; the rich are monsters while the poor are good, wholesome people; make-up men are gay and could even steal your boyfriend; and much, much more.
Some points to Boman Irani, an actor this critic otherwise dislikes. Subtle and believable portrayal of an editor, no attempts at speech-making or justification for his actions. The look and feel of a newspaper office is accurate, too…but all of these are small mercies, and in the final analysis, too small.
Like most Hindi films, this one talks down to its audience – it tells you who the bad people are, who the good ones are, and even supplies a glossary becaue you, like the director, are an outsider. (Helpful tip: swapping means adla-badli.)
What Bhandarkar doesn’t know is that the best satires are made by insiders looking out, not by outsiders looking in. When Bosco the driver is boasting to his fellow chauffeurs, you get the feeling that’s lil’ Madhur there, still trying desperately to get in on the action and sneak a peek…just for a sec, mister, honest?
The ‘bold theme, poor execution’ genre has overstayed its welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Give us some real movies, please.
You know what the problem with Bollywood is?
The interval. An arbitrary insertion of a fifteen-minute break just as things are getting interesting so that people don’t have to hold back the dam any more and so that the snack counter stays in business.
What it basically boils down to is that every film that comes out of Bombay is actually two different films soldered together so that the exhibitor has one feature-length product to market.
First the setup, then the denouement. As in any other film in any other language, you say?
Except that in Bollywood, the first half is the hook. The part with all the fun, the flesh, the music, and the have-a-good-time-you-did-pay-the-price-of-admission feel to it.
Then comes the dramatic incident that is underscored by gongs and/or kettledrums in the background as the screen goes black and INTERMISSION appears on screen. (It seems INTERVAL isn’t a serious enough word.)
And then, in the second half, all mirth and mazaa disappear. Characters experience internal conflicts, flex their thespian muscles, and either redeem themselves or are destroyed.
Which brings us to PAGE 3. A simplistic examination of modern-day mores and manners, the reality and evils of tinsel town (shocking!), and the ugliness that lurks beneath the skin of Bombay’s Beautiful People.
PAGE 3 comes to you from the creative mind of Madhur Bhandarkar, the man who yanked away the curtains that hid the bump-and-grind of CHANDNI BAR.
PAGE 3 is a ludicrous take on modern day mores, manners and the superficiality that constitutes life in Tinsel Town. In lieu of strong characters, director Madhur Bhandarkar resorts to bland stereotypes that make inane conversation with each other over the course of the film’s two-and-a-half hours. To wit: Delhi’s well-known cross-dressing hairdresser Sylvie is reincarnated as a grotesque fashion designer who whines about being denied the use of the ladies’ room in Ladakh; veteran theatre artist Dolly Thakore does a salt-and-pepper coiffured Shobhaa De; and various other high-society types appear as themselves or something like it.
The film is almost pornographic in its monotonous repetition of party scenes, pulsing dance numbers and cutaways of a bemused-looking Konkona Sen Sharma.
Desperately phobic about people who speak English and girls who stay out late at night, the film manifests its disapproval through vapid teenagers who call a rampaging cop a ghati – to which he responds by stunning them into silence with the revelation that he graduated in English literature! Then follows a lecture on how one should first be Indian, then try and be Western (with a helpful “Hmmm?” for effect).
Since it’s 2005, Nirupa Roy’s ghost is exorcized by the casting of Soni Razdan in the role of long-suffering mother. Razdan agonizes over how she can’t control her daughter – it seems the little terror comes home late and even – gasp! – stays over at a friend’s place sometimes. Cue a shushing by her too-busy-having-sex-with-ten-year-olds-to-care-about-you-and-your-problems husband Nassar Abdulla (who used to make a decent living endorsing Archies Cards and Ceat Tyres in the Innocent Eighties), accompanied by sad music to manipulate you into feeling sorry for her.
The scenes at the rave party where the drug bust takes place are almost surreal in their lack of authenticity – mindless youths throb mindlessly in time to the mindless rhythms that are playing as they mindlessly consume drugs. (Ah, so any time somebody takes drugs, their immediate response is to flutter their eyelids like a pharaoh rising from the dead and look like you were once an extra on HARE RAMA HARE KRISHNA.)
Technical incompetence joins the party too, just for fun. Abominable lip synching combines with atrocious dubbing, even for the actors who’ve done their own voices.
The film also has a quasi-philosophical theme song to move things along, any time the assistant forgot to deliver the day’s shooting script. No, thankfully the words “Page Three” are missing from its lyrics…it just features Lata Mangeshkar crooning “Kitne ajeeb rishte hain yahan pe” and can usually be heard anytime there’s a nubile young starlet being seduced or when the earnest Konkona is pondering her place in the universe.
Other stereotypes/clichés present and accounted for: bearded, khadi-clad Hindi journalist; solid, honest, denim-wearing crusader-scribe; transition from miniskirt to salwar-kameez on change of heart; ‘liberated girl’ smokes and is a Christian to boot; green journalist and female Konkona is shown the path of righteousness and truth by plain-talking but kind male Atul Kulkarni; when a boy and a girl have sex, it’s always because the boy forced the issue; foreigners are funny animals, usually evil, mercifully not called ‘Mr. John’ in this film; the rich are monsters while the poor are good, wholesome people; make-up men are gay and could even steal your boyfriend; and much, much more.
Some points to Boman Irani, an actor this critic otherwise dislikes. Subtle and believable portrayal of an editor, no attempts at speech-making or justification for his actions. The look and feel of a newspaper office is accurate, too…but all of these are small mercies, and in the final analysis, too small.
Like most Hindi films, this one talks down to its audience – it tells you who the bad people are, who the good ones are, and even supplies a glossary becaue you, like the director, are an outsider. (Helpful tip: swapping means adla-badli.)
What Bhandarkar doesn’t know is that the best satires are made by insiders looking out, not by outsiders looking in. When Bosco the driver is boasting to his fellow chauffeurs, you get the feeling that’s lil’ Madhur there, still trying desperately to get in on the action and sneak a peek…just for a sec, mister, honest?
The ‘bold theme, poor execution’ genre has overstayed its welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Give us some real movies, please.
Indian Zoetrope
A SHORT HISTORY OF WORLD CINEMA
In the beginning, there was the zoetrope...
Then came the kinetoscope...
And then came cinemascope...
Of course, along the way, a lot of people made movies.
And the world created and destroyed itself a thousand times over.
Now we have blogs.
Hooray.
In the beginning, there was the zoetrope...
Then came the kinetoscope...
And then came cinemascope...
Of course, along the way, a lot of people made movies.
And the world created and destroyed itself a thousand times over.
Now we have blogs.
Hooray.
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