Archive for the ‘Society’ Category
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi - betrayal by the new bahu
On August 20, 2008 in Saas-Bahu, Drama, Star Plus, Revenge, Values, Character, Society, TV, Popular, Family, Hindi Serial
A battle royal between Tulsi and Tripti is ongoing, with Tulsi fighting a proxy battle with Vaidehi (her bahu, but one who also totally believes in Tripti and is fighting to destroy the Viranis even though she is married to Laksh and is now in love with him). One wonders as to how Tripti is wandering around free and out of jail, given that she had been sentenced by a court to a jail term, but she is wandering freely without any constraint; but she must have proved a popular villain, and hence they brought her back into the serial in a confrontational mode with the Viranis without worrying about a jail sentence.
So Vaidehi sets out on her task. It can be a good role for any actress, showing her to be a dutiful daughter-in-law while also seeking to destroy the family in which she lives. In this case however, by getting her to confront Tulsi at every opportunity, to laugh like a maniac many times, and to try to look evil a lot, somehow is ruining the whole effect. It looks out of place, and seems like over-acting. At the same time, they show her to be capable of any kind of wrong deed, including adding stuff in juice and putting oil on steps to make people fall.
Bhootnath - a mis-mash of different emotions
On June 21, 2008 in Culture, Video, Child, Drama, Song, Movie, Values, Society
I watched Bhootnath just the day after having watched Jannat just the previous day, and given that my impression of Jannat was not good, any movie would have been good. But Bhootnath was a movie that impressed in parts. The Director, Vivek Sharma, tried to take many human emotions into the movie; thus taking the movie into 3 separate parts - the first part where the ghost appears to be evil and a danger to whoever tries to enter the property; the second part where the child makes friend with the ghost and turns him into a proper civilized person-like character with human emotions; and the third part where there is an attempt to throw in a lot of tear-jerkering emotional scene so that the ghost can disappear and everything can turn out normal. In the end, these attempts to make the movie cater to many interests put a lot of strain on the overall movie, and my feeling is that it did not turn out as well as could be. The movie takes on a heavy social issue of how children go abroad, and become of that land.
The movie is geared towards kids, and that was clear when I saw the songs. They were all songs designed to appeal to children, and it did seem a bit different to see songs that had a lot of kids in them; but most of the audience was adults, so was wondering whether there was a mismatch in terms of the advertising of the movie versus the intended effect of the advertising. The movie has a cast that is capable of some great things - Amitabh Bachchan, Aman Siddiqui, Juhi Chawla, Rajpal Yadav, Satish Shah, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Shahrukh Khan. Amitabh Bachchan gives a good role, but one feels that in the middle of the movie, he gets overshadowed by the kid, and then in the latter half of the movie, Shahrukh Khan seems to get most of the attention (Shahrukh Khan had a role that was more than a guest appearance, but less than a full role). Rajpal Yadav was very thoroughly under-used in the movie, getting 2 very brief scenes (almost like a cameo).
Prahaar: A great movie by Nana Patekar
On May 06, 2008 in Crime, Mafia, Video, Action, Classic, Movie, Bollywood, Society
There are times when you watch that is so impressive that you don’t mind watching it again. I found Prahaar to be one such movie. The movie was released in 1991, and it has been quite some time, but it can’t take away the topical nature of the movie. The movie was directed by Nana Patekar and produced by Sudhakar Bokade. The movie had music by Laxmikant Pyarelal and lyrics by Mangesh Kulkarni.
Nana Patekar showed a commendable amount of skill in extracting good performances from the cast of characters that included Dimple Kapadia and Madhuri Dixit (there was a story floating around the time when the movie was made that he wanted a natural look, and so when one of the female leads reported to the set in make-up, he asked her to wash the make-up off). The movie does not have a direct villain, but there is a struggle against many kinds of bad elements, whether it be terrorists, or the normal city ruffians and hoodlums who take hafta (extortion money), or even of the normal population who have been so terrorised that they have lost some of their sense of right or wrong. The movie also has some good performances from the second tier of characters such as Gautam Joglekar (who plays Peter D’Souza).
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Swades: An eminently watchable movie
On March 22, 2008 in Patriotic, Culture, Video, Values, Classic, Movie, Bollywood, Despair, Society
Swades, released in 2004, was a much awaited movie. Ever since Lagaan was released in 2001 and its theme of a rural village uniting to fight a foreign oppressor became a hit, there was always the expectation of another movie on a rural theme making it big. And thus when the same director, Ashutosh announced another movie, this one too on a rural theme, there was a great amount of hope that the presence of Shahrukh Khan would make this movie a super-hit as well. However, this was not to be. The movie came, got some good press, got some criticism over its length and the fact the movie seemed to many people too unrealistic, too much like a documentary. Come on, a successful NASA scientist chucking it all away, and then going off to generate electricity almost single-handedly for a rural village. Fiction indeed.
The fact remains, Swades is a great movie. The movie has a legend of ‘We, the people’, and seems to be a labor of love (with the movie having been written, produced and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker). It shows a fair amount of the ills such as lack of knowledge, illiteracy and discrimination that plague our villages. At the same time, it does not present these as obstacles that cannot be overcome (as many other movies do, which try to show conflict as the only way to resolve the problems). The movie has a great romance theme, heavily under-stated with a great new comer performance by Gayatri Joshi. The movie has great music, seemingly very appropriate for the movie theme (Music is by A. R. Rahman, lyrics by Javed Akhtar).
Song: Chak de Fattey - Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006)
On February 14, 2008 in Mafia, Song, Revenge, Comedy, Classic, Movie, Middle Class, Bollywood, Society
Chak De Fatte is an exceptional song from the stable of Dhruv Dhalla, with lyrics by Jaideep Sahni (who is also the scriptwriter, the dialogues writer; he is also credited with the story). The song (sung by Kailash Kher) is a very peppy song, and have been remixed a lot. It is still incredibly popular; and of course, the movie is also very popular. The movie, Khosla Ka Ghosla, cannot be called an unknown movie, since it has stars of the like of Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Ranvir Shourey, Tara Sharma, and others.
What the movie did achieve was that of a dream run, with the classic tale of a low budget movie that went to get some spectacular word of mouth publicity, and then become a hit; as well as a cult status. People who have seen the movie claim that it so much resembles reality, and especially from Delhi believe that it portrays life and people in the city exactly as they are (not very flattering for people in Delhi, but that is how things are). You see the character, and they seem so life-like, and you are sure to believe that this is how the land mafia will behave. You find yourself urging on the fight-back by the normal middle class people, while identifying with the timidity of the father.
Sapna Babul Ka Vidai
On January 21, 2008 in Sony, Drama, TV, Gossip, Society, Middle Class, Hindi Serial
Sometimes you get serials that promise to be real tear-jerker. Alok Nath runs a family comprising of his wife played by Vibha Chibber (the assistant coach in movie Chak de India), his daughter Ragini (played by Parul Chauhan), and her cousin Sadhana (Sara Khan). The serial bears an uncanny resemblance to the start of the movie Vivah, although things could change later.
The serial comes on Star Plus weekdays (Monday - Thursday) at 9 PM for 30 minutes. The show seems a bit regressive, given that it currently seems to focus on parents desiring only one thing out of their daughters, that is. to get them married. In addition, there is a lot of focus on the emphasis of complexion on the ability to get married, and how groom’s side can actually refuse to get their boy married just on the basis of complexion.
Ragini is in the queue to get married, but her cousin Sadhana is fair compared to the darker complexion of Ragini. To this end, Ragini’s mother wants to prevent Sadhana from ever being seen when boys are seeing Ragini, or anywhere during the pre-marriage and marriage occasions (imagine depriving a cousin of the chance of taking part in the marriage festivities). And typically for a serial of this type, Sadhana is forced to emerge when the marriage of Ragini is happening at which stage, the groom’s mother wants to swap the beautiful Sadhana for Ragini as the bride (imagine selecting a girl just based on complexion !). At this point thankfully, Alok Nath stands firm; although why they could not call the police when the groom’s family demanded money was beyond me.
Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (1992)
On December 27, 2007 in Corruption, Character, Values, Culture, Crime, Romance, Movie, Bollywood, Music, Despair, Society
Ranju Ban Gaya Gentleman is one of the early Shahrukh movies, made before he became the King Khan and one of the hottest property of Bollywood. The movie has a fresh feel to it, being made (director: Aziz Mirza) when there was not so much money riding on Shahrukd Khan and movies could afford to skip the current formula of hard core masala, breakneck action, and so on. The movie has a nice flow to it, with a simplistic story set mainly around ambition. One needs to remember that this was 1992, when India was still totally under the grip of socialism, and movies high-lighted naked ambition as something bad and ugly, something that could cause a person to loose their morals and their bearings.
Aaja Nachle: Madhuri’s comeback vehicle
On December 09, 2007 in Melody, Dance, Culture, Song, Music, Movie, Bollywood, Society
Aaja Nachle got a shock on the day of release when an allegedly casteist remark caused various state Governments in North India to ban it. However, when the Director apologized and got the remark (in a song) removed, then things were fine and the bans were lifted. At the same time, this movie got a lot of criticism over many different points:
1. Madhuri got so much to do in the script that one hardly got to see much of the dancing that one would expect in a movie such as this
2. Acting by some talented people such as Konkona Sen was not upto the mark; her role was to a large extent that of a empty headed small town girl. Of course, there was some balance in the sense that she played the role to a beauty, but then when she has given such good performances in the part, she could have been given a role with more depth
3. The fact that the story hardly had much of song and dance, with the script giving a wide exposure to Madhuri as she threaded her way through the small town, there was not enough time to have more song and dance
4. Then there is some criticism of the way that the town has been setup, with a lot of critics panning it for the lack of realism
Amber Dhara: Story of conjoined twins
On November 04, 2007 in Sony, Values, Culture, Video, Character, Family, Society, Middle Class, TV, Hindi Serial
This, hopefully, is a serial with a difference. For some time now, Sony has been advertising its serial about 2 twins, and as time for the serial launch came closer, details became clearer. People joined together are called ‘Siamese twins’, and have a difference in their lifestyle as compared to other people. Many people see such people as oddities, and hence this serial is a good attempt to try and portray them in a more realistic and detailed way; as well as some of the problems that they face.
The only hope that I have is that, in an attempt to generate more TRP’s and popularity, the makers of the serial should not insert unnecessary drama and situations in their life. Already one can see such things starting to happen; after all, just because they are conjoined twins, it does not mean that they would end up in a circus; further, there is no necessity that there needs to be a strong villain like character in the serial. It is only in TV and movies are there people who are evil, in real life, most people have shades of grey and even bad people have their own sympathetic nature.
Hum Aapke Hain Kaun: Super Duper hit
On October 31, 2007 in Song, Values, Melody, Drama, Culture, Dance, Family, Romance, Bollywood, Movie, Music, Popular, Classic, Society
5 years after Sooraj Barjatya took the name of Rajshri back to its heights, he came out with another movie that was one of the biggest hits that Bollywood has ever seen. The movie took most of the successful cast from ‘Maine Pyaar Kiya’, subtracted Bhagyashree, and added the box-office appeal of Madhuri Dixit, took the story of a Bhojpuri movie starring Sachin ‘Nadiya Ke Paar’ and made that into a movie that was a full family entertainer. It was about as far from a thriller as you can have, with nary a villain in the entire movie.
The movie was styled to appeal to the family goer, with many songs (14 songs), with all the pomp and show involved in family functions and marriages. You have devotion to parents, brotherly devotion, and a love story running through the movie that is ready for the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of family. In fact, in Britain, cynical commentators took the English movie name ‘Four Weddings and Funeral’ starring Hugh Grant, and applied a derivative of that name, ‘Fourteen Songs and 2 Weddings’ to the Hindi movie. That seems to fit the movie pretty well.
The movie is about a joint family, with Alok Nath being the head of the family, his wife having died earlier. He has 2 sons, Mohnish Behl being the elder and more serious (and involved in the family business) and Salman Khan being the younger and more mischievous and carefree (but still committed to the family). Trying to arrange for Mohnish Behl’s marriage, Alok Nath runs into an old friend Anupam Kher and his wife Reema Lagoo who have 2 daughters Renuka Shahne and Madhuri Dixit.
Mohnish Behl and Renuka Shahne both get attracted towards each other, and a grand wedding is planned. During this process, Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit also feel attracted towards each other, and slowly fall for each other. There are other family friends who are part of the whole household, such as Bindu, Ajit Vachani, Satish Shah, the late Laxmikant Berde who all play smaller roles in the movie.
As the younger couple move towards each other, there is a big news in the offing; Renuka Shahne is pregnant and delivers a bright bonny son. They tell her the news, but unfortunately she has a bad fall and dies. Amidst and gloom and tragedy, there are plans to get Madhuri Dixit to marry Mohnish so as that the baby can get proper care. Salman Khan accepts this sacrifice as part of the family need, but seems like fate has something else to say.
Music of the movie was great, with music by Ram Laxman.
