12 awesome random filmi pictures.

Nadira!



Any picture with both Vidya and Rani is a winner in my books.


Sonam looking gorgeous as per usual.



This picture of Dharmendra is just ... A++++




Who doesn't love the apples in Maine Pyar Kiya?



..or the lair in Parvarish?


Or this swishy skirt of Rani's from Bunty aur Babli?



Oldie stars eating away!



Siddharth as a baby!


Vinod Khanna living the life!



Production still from Kagaaz Ke Phool.



Aradhana to cap this post off.

Happy 12/12/12, guys!

Mr & Mrs '55 - should have come with a warning..

Apparently tons of people were perfectly aware that Mr & Mrs '55, the Guru Dutt-directed romantic comedy that is neither very romantic nor all that comedic, had a plot more or less composed of aggravating anti-feminist/misogynist ideology drivel. Well, I sadly wasn't, so I actually bought the DVD and was fully anticipating a good time.

The plot should have been a warning sign, but I knew nothing of it, going in. Madhubala plays Anita, a rich girl who will inherit her father's riches after marriage. Her aunt, Sitadevi, is the film's unfortunate "Straw Feminist" (this link is to a great video that explains the term and the use of the stereotype in Hollywood films), who is partly responsible for the new divorce law, which makes divorcing easier. She hatches a plan to get Anita married to poor cartoonist Preetam (Guru Dutt), but he only agrees to this plan because he's met and fallen in love with Anita.

There's a way to be not all that feminist a film, but still not annoying. Where this story falls down is the fact that not only is Sitadevi a gross, exaggerated stereotype of a manhating feminist (and it is annoyingly underlined that she has "learned" feminism from her Western counterparts, because naturally there are no Indian feminists whatsoever!), she's also the sole villain. While in Hollywood, the "Straw Feminist" may be used to discredit feminism to say "everybody's already equal", in here her ridiculous, self-serving ideology is labelled feminist to prop up conservative ideology of women's natural place being in the home, doing chores and looking after children. Unlike most real life feminists, who advocate women having the choice to marry and work, or marry and work inside the home, or not marry at all, for that matter, Sitadevi naturally wants to dictate this choice herself.


I'll be honest: this film nearly ruined Guru Dutt for me.

The sad thing, this is not a terrible film. It would have been fine without the blatant ideology - they could have portrayed Sitadevi as a terrible woman (still not a feminist thing!) but that her feminism and her awful behaviour are not necessarily directly related. But because the film wants to push the idea that feminists are evil beasts who describe being a housewife as slavery and are against women making any choices that aren't "for the cause", it casts a real shadow over everything I enjoyed about the film - the Madhubala-Guru Dutt chemistry, the nicely frequent OP Nayar songs, the Johnny Walker comedy bits. There are numerous cute moments that could make up a good film, if I could ignore the ideological dialogues that pop up every now and then.

There was one particular terrible bit of dialogue, where Preetam's sister-in-law tells Anita, after she asks about the woman's husband and whether he beats her, "You sometimes get rocks in the rice, but you don't stop eating the rice." While I fully recognise that a lot may have been lost in the translation of this particular bit of dialogue, this bit was just downright offensive to me.

I should also point out, there are a great number of highly credible critiques of Western mainstream feminism from the Indian perspective - but this film and the ideas it presents are not some of them. There have been discussions of how the feminism of English women propped up colonialist and orientalist ideas that further subjugated Indian women, as well as how more modern white women "spoke for" women in poorer countries, rather than allowing them a voice of their own. (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Chandra Talpade Mohanty are just some of the people presenting the critiques I'm talking about.) But that's my Gender Studies minor talking, so let's get back to the film..


Johnny Walker and this actress, Yasmeen, who bears a vague resemblance to Rani Mukherji were probably my favourite thing when it comes down to it. They also were in my favourite song from the film, "Jaane kahan mera jigar gaya ji".

If you're at all like me in this department, just skip this film. As you can see from the screencaps, my SKY label DVD was also terrible in terms of picture quality, so that's definitely, definitely not worth the purchase, either.

Oldie photos.

I feel like my brain is completely running on underdrive thanks to doing so much studying. Me and some friends did watch Andaz Apna Apna and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, confirming once again that I can watch those two as many times as possible and they'll still stay favourites. And I have some newer films I need to review but like I said, too brainless. So have some oldie photos for the lack of actual substance.

Writer's block mini-reviews, part 1.

So, I have this blog. And I've seen ..according to my current count, 183 Indian films (give or take, I have some films I'm half-way through, and some films might be missing from the list I have). How many of them have I actually discussed here? A miniscule portion. Let me try to correct that. I inserted my alphabetical list of films seen onto random.org's randomizer and out came a new, randomized list. Here are the first 10 items on that list.

1. Duplicate (1998) - A list of Shahrukh Khan films I absolutely adore is not too long. Even shorter is the list of his movies that I adore in which he is full-on, one hundred percent unsaturated Shahrukh Khan, not toned down as you see him in Chak De India, for example. Duplicate is one of those movies. It's a loud, physical comedy film starring Shahrukh in a double role. The leather-wearing badboy Mannu is out on the run and discovers a foolish mama's boy Bablu bears an uncanny resemblance to him. Hijinks, mistaken identities, romance (Sonali Kulkarni as Mannu's foxy but mistreated girlfriend and Juhi Chawla as Bablu's adorable ladyboss) and hillarity ensue. This one has an uber-catchy, cheesy 90's soundtrack, too. It's just so much fun!

2. Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam (1962) - My first Guru Dutt movie and one of my favourites. On my first watch I remember being completely confused on the social reality portrayed in the movie, I think I still am. Essentially Guru Dutt plays a man who comes to work for a royalty of some kind, meets a lovely girl (Waheeda Rehman) and also gets to know the royalty's lonely, tragic wife (Meena Kumari). It's a classic, and it's a lot less sad than a lot of other Dutt movies so I can definitely recommend it. Oddly enough I've read that by the time this was filmed, Waheeda Rehman and Guru Dutt were not on good terms with each other at all - yet I think their chemistry is great in this!

3. Kaakha Kaakha: The Police (2003) - This is a well-made Tamil action thriller about, you guessed it, cops. Surya plays a policeman whose group are "encounter specialists". This basically means if they run into some gangsters, they can shoot at free will, and boy, do they ever. I thought this was well-made but the actual plot didn't interest me much. It's worth a rental for the smooth soundtrack and the spectacular Jothika-Surya pairing. She looks amazing in this.

4. Yaadon ki Baaraat (1973) - The soundtrack contains one of my favourite Hindi songs ever, "Chura liya hai tumne jo dilko" and that's why I saw this one. It's a mediocre film about three brothers separated at childhood, starring Dharmendra and Zeenat Aman (not paired!) and has a very young Aamir Khan in one scene. And .. I don't know what else to say, really. It's not that bad. It's just not that good, either.


5. Aethiree/Ethiri (2004) - Oh Maddy. Oh, Maddy. This Tamil masala starts out pretty light and fun - R. Madhavan plays a regular guy who gets mistaken for a rowdie (that's Tamil-filmish for 'street gangster, troublemaker') and therefore starts pretending to act like one, even though he is a total wuss. There's a funny friend (Vivek!), a pretty girl (Sada) and it's generally pretty cool (I rather adore this song). Then something happens and the plot just veers off into massive WTF zone and all the cuteness of the movie is successfully ruined. I'm glad I could borrow this DVD off a friend - and look at that cover, can you see why I wanted to see it despite my friend's warnings? - because a few good songs, and some minor Maddy&Sada cuteness DVD purchase does not make.

6. Aarzoo (1999) - I've already discussed this but let us recap: awful Sakshay movie with Madhuri, don't watch, don't watch, do not watch.

7. 36 China Town (2006) - I still own this Abbas-Mustan comedy/thriller despite Race making me question everything those guys have ever directed. It's not a great movie, but when it came out, after nothing good had come out since Rang De Basanti and Fanaa was still a month away, it was a pleasant surprise. Kareena was funny in it, Akshaye was funny in it, and okay okay, it also gave us Upen Patel but no film's perfect, right?

8. Karan Arjun (1995) - Before Sakshay came along, my favourite Bollywood on-screen pair was without a doubt Kajol-SRK. Which is why I saw this one, a damn cheesy film that is so far the only film where we've seen Shahrukh and Salman side by side. It's got insane mother-love, an even more insane villain, resurrection, cheesy 90's dance moves.. If you think Kajol and Shahrukh only did great movies together, you have to watch this one. I don't own it on DVD because while fun, it's not quite that much fun, but every now and then I feel like rewatching "Jaati hoon main" on youtube..

9. Aradhana (1969) - I have to say I enjoyed this classic Sharmila Tagore-Rajesh Khanna starrer, not least of all because it contains the (hot!) picturization for "Roop tera mastana", another song favourite of mine. But despite my enjoyment, there were things about the plot that did not quite sit right with me. The mother who goes through tremendous sacrifice, the double role of Rajesh Khanna.. I guess what I'm getting at is that even though I quite liked it, it's nowhere near becoming a favourite of mine.

10. Achanak (1973) - I cannot fathom why I never bought this movie. It's total Vinod Fangirl Fodder. He plays a soldier who makes questionable choices in life and later battles with them mentally (read: manpain), relaying the story of his life to his doctor and his nurse (Farida Jalal as a young actress!). It's a soundtrackless Gulzar movie that pokes your brain about life, death and morality, but it's also an odd one; very short, only a little over an hour in running time. And a lot of it is Vinod. It's just fantastic. More films should be like this.


This was a lot of fun to do! When my next "cannot figure out what to post" mood strikes, I shall make use of this randomized list once again.

Miscellanous thoughts on the history of Bollywood, Part 1.

I won't go into detail on what inspired this post; let's just say I've been learning about these things as of late.

• At times it really bugs me that the early history of Indian film is so hard to access - I think the earliest films available are from 1940's, maybe a few select earlier films available on DVD or as archived material (you can only access by going to India). Compare this to what you can get your hands on from the silent era of European film, or Hollywood, or Scandinavian film. It's a huge, rich context we're quite simply missing out on, and can only really read about in books and by seeing still photographs of movies.
• Addendum: why this bugs me especially is because of the difference of Hindi film's history compared to other cinemas. The influences are different. The style is different. The context is obviously unique. Regarding the influences, I've read and heard Parsi theater, other folk theater traditions and Sanskrit aesthetics (the entire 'rasa' theory) cited as heavy influence. In a way, not being able to discuss early cinema with the voice of experience (or rather, just having seen some of these damn movies!) feels like I'm missing a very vital link. You know, I don't know if I would be interested in watching 30+ Sulochana movies or a dozen mythological silent movies, but I'd at least like to have the opportunity to do so. Basically, to see the continuity clearer from past cinema to modern cinema, would be nice, even if just to justify some of the things that make Bollywood as it is: when somebody disgards the films as overly dramatic, I could simply say, "Look, this is the tradition over there. This is the preference of the audience, throughout the ages. Why do you assume they'd be making movies according to your tastes?"
• I feel awfully embarrassed because as much as I love Guru Dutt, I've seen such a rare few of his films. The big ones, sure, and I have Mr & Mrs 55 in the mail, arriving next week and will get to it eventually, but in comparison to my other favourites on the oldie front, it's just embarrassing. Then again, to be honest, I do find it easier to watch a nice 70's film than a 50's/60's masterpiece. There is something wrong with me like that. (By the way, if you recommend me Guru Dutt films - please do - I'd prefer ones with him as an actor, not the director.)
  
• Don't you love the romanticized tragic on-screen/off-screen jodi's of the 50's? I'm talking Raj Kapoor-Nargis, Madhubala-Dilip Kumar and of course, Guru Dutt-Waheeda Rehman. I think out of the three, only Madhubala-Dilip is confirmed - they did date, her family didn't approve, there was a court hassle over a movie, and then they broke up, and the romanticized version of the story goes, she never stopped loving him to the event of her untimely death. Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt were married men, which makes the alleged romances with their most popular on-screen partners slightly less romantic but tragic all the same (especially Guru and Waheeda - I'm really surprised they weren't in speaking terms while filming Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam because that was my first film with the two and I adored their chemistry to pieces).
  
• Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi - a movie I ought to see more like, and a movie you ought to see, period.
  
  
• Does it ever bother anybody else that as a fan, you sometimes latch onto historically inconsequential (or maybe just-not-all-that-important) stars and films? I know I'll read and learn about 70's Hindi films, I probably won't hear a word about Vinod Khanna, and am probably lucky to hear about Dharmendra or Hema Malini unless the subject is Sholay (which the subject very well should be!). On the other hand, in the modern times, I feel like my favourites, especially in terms of movies, are the ones most people will remember in 10 years' time. It's odd.
  

More coming in part 2, whenever I get around to writing it up. :)