IFAC #13: The cheesier side of the industry's favourite jodi.

When I first saw Bollywood, I especially enjoyed three things about it; Kajol, Shahrukh, and the coupling of the two on screen. I wanted to see more of them, and so after K3G (my first BW film), I got my hands on Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (which I liked) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (which I adored).

But I still had two SRK-Kajol films to watch, two films not so universally loved but still seen by most because, well, even if you don't love SRK-Kajol, who doesn't love 90's masala?

So here are the song clips people rarely associate with the legendary pairing ..one can only wonder why this is.



Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankheen from Baazigar. 90's Bollydisco with all the ridiculousness but also all the catchiness in the world. Sinfully long at 7 minutes but still guilty pleasure gold.



Baazigar O Baazigar from ..Baazigar. Also very long, but so worth it, what with all the delightful costume changes (from Zorro and bride to a sailing couple to whatever Spanish/Latin-American stereotype the next get-up is..) And never forgetting the bit where Shahrukh jumps out of the water with a trumpet in hand. Bless.



Jaati hoon main from Karan Arjun. Truly fabulous piece of farmyard eroticism plus general fun goofing around. I unironically adore what Kajol is wearing. And pretty much everything else, too. I need to rewatch the movie because damn, was it fun.

IFAC #12: Quotes of Bollymusings past.

Dug up from the archives of my Livejournal, the beginnings of my Bollywood obsession. I enjoy reminiscing.

1. Today I learned that straight in Bollywood equals several thrusting motions done with hips, in tight trousers, in the rhythm of music. Yeah. I love Bollywood, too. - Oct 2005
-- Nowadays I sort of cringe at this sort of "oh they're doing something that doesn't conform to my own culture's masculine ideals, that's so peculiar"-thinking but it's still very telling of the kind of thinking one does go through, without being able to help it.

2. I've discovered that the Finnish saying "Nälkä kasvaa syödessä" (= Hunger grows while eating) applies to Bollywood. I can't get enough. It's nearly scary. - November 2005
-- ...four years later, still here! It's true, all right.

3. I saw Parineeta, which was lovely, but felt way too short. Two hours? That's not a Bollywood movie! - October 2005
-- Oh 2005!self, you are a riot. You're often wrong, but you're still a riot.

4. indians are hotter than hot. - September 2005, title of a post on Ek Hasina Thi.
-- What was that about fetishization... Um. Yeah. So. Moving on (she says, embarrassed).

5. Bollywood films are crazy and have people dancing. I like that. - March 2004
-- Yeah, people dancing. How completely bizarre and insane. But still, it's nice that over five years later I can post on a blog called "so they dance" and still admit to liking the dancing aspect of these films a lot. Some things change, some things don't, y'know?

6. (About a dream I had.)
I bump into Shahrukh Khan at this mall I live close to (WTF #1), and ask him for a hug (WTF #2). Then I launch into full fangirl mode (WTF! #3), tell him, "I love you! You're so inspiring" (WTF?!? #4). He laughs and asks me, "Really? How so?". I proceed to tell him I'm going to write a script for him to star in (WTF #5). He says, "Okay, I'll do it." - January 2006
-- Watch out, SRK, it just might happen! I also love how the last bit is NOT a WTF in my books. Me hugging SRK and writing scripts for him - WTF. Him agreeing to do my script? Not a WTF.

7. You know the day sucks when even Juhi Chawla's face doesn't cheer you up. Meh. - March 2006
-- I hold this truth to be self-evident. Now and forever.

IFAC #11: Colourful Southie film picspam

Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana ; Siddharth & Trisha









Muthu ; Rajnikanth & Meena









Konchem Ishtam Konchem Kashtham ; Tamanna









Kaadhal ; Bharath & Sandhya












Iruvar ; Aishwarya Rai

Indra ; Sonali Bendre & Chiranjeevi

Dhool ; Vikram & Jothika

Arul ; Vikram & Jothika

Anniyan ; Sada

Aata ; Ileana

IFAC #10: Antarmahal, or: I need a rewatch.

Can I review a movie I barely remember details from? Antarmahal: Views of the Inner Chamber (2005) is the only Bengali film I've seen so far, and my reasons for viewing it were perhaps a tad too fangirly for the sort of artsier feature it ended up being, considering it's directed by Rituparno Ghosh.

Jackie Scroff plays an oppressive head of a rich household in 19th century Bengal. He has a wife (Rupa Ganguly) put decides to get a new, younger one (Soha Ali Khan), much to the older wife's discontent. Being the douchebag he is, he also wants to suck up to the Brits by replacing the face of Goddess Durga with the face of the Queen, and hires a non-Bengali sculptor (Abhishek Bachchan, with eyeliner!) to do the job.

As you can imagine by considering the fact it's a Bengali art film, the pace is slow and shots linger on seemingly unimportant details. I'll just come right out and say it: I may understand these sorts of films but when I watched it, I was far too lazy to figure it out. However, in an interesting way, the film still delivered. Rupa Ganguly's performance was excellent and incredibly intense, erotic but completely silent chemistry between Abhishek and Soha made the film worth watching.

Still, as far as anything else goes, it's hard to grasp what the film maker was actually getting at. The film has been described as graituitously erotic. Besides the interest between Abhishek and Soha, there is Rupa Ganguly's character whose sleazy husband makes her satisfy Brahmin priests. He also tries to sleep with Soha's character, also with a priest present in order to perform the necessary rites to make sure she becomes pregnant with a son for him, but she keeps rejecting him.

Even after I finished watching I knew I needed to rewatch to really sink my teeth into this movie. But then, years went by, and I never bought the DVD to have that rewatch. I just didn't care, I suppose. Some art films feel like they reward the effort of rewatches, the effort of picking them apart. Others just fail to impress as movies, regardless of artistic intent. Antarmahal always seemed more of the latter, and not enough of the first.

IFAC #9: Ek Hasina Thi. Oh my.

I got the laptop I'm typing on in summer 2006, after graduating from senior high school. I was pretty psyched. Finally my own computer, where I could save whatever I liked without fear of anybody going through it! I could play my DVD's in the comfort of my room, in peace. And most importantly, I could screencap the heck out of any DVD I owned.

The first film I screencapped? Ek Hasina Thi, Sriram Raghavan's debut thriller from 2004, starring Urmila Matondkar and Saif Ali Khan.

I don't really discuss this movie much, because I feel like most have seen it and appreciate without me kicking up a fuss and announcing how madly I love it. But I do, love it that is. Madly, too. And why wouldn't I? It's an intense film, well-directed and scripted and the performances are extremely memorable. It only has one song, the titular "Ek hasina thi" (There was once a beautiful girl). And purely from a superficial perspective, it's well-shot and Urmila and Saif both look amazing.

Another reason I don't often talk about it is because talking about it would mean giving much of the plot away. If I'd have my way, the only thing anybody would ever know of this movie, prior to seeing it would be the DVD cover with blood running down side, pictures of the two leads and the tag line: "It started like just another love story..."

Because that's really all you need to know. The story is nowhere near as complex and inventive as Raghavan's later Johnny Gaddaar but it's still worth not spoiling much, just for the sake of the new viewer who has the benefit of seeing how it folds out in front of their eyes. It's really no surprise, considering this is a thriller, that even if the beginning could on paper be a start of a love story, the mood makes it clear this is far, far from it.

As you can imagine, there is deceit, there is crime, and there is blood but no romance to speak of. When I first saw EHT, just that blew me away - it was one of the first, if not THE first starkly non-masala films I'd seen at that point. Nowadays, I admit I might not be so impressed with it. But I'm glad I saw it when I saw it, I'm glad for the numerous rewatches I've given it, and I'm glad to have the DVD on my shelf.

Whether you'll love it as much as I do -- I sincerely doubt it, but I do recommend it a lot all the same. It's a must watch, if not for the masala lover, then at least for fans of the leads, or those who enjoy a darker Hindi fare.

Or for any superficial reason you can think of. Any excuse to post more screencaps of this will do.

IFAC #8: Wayback machine to filmi year 2006.

Decided to shorten the title; I think everybody's pretty aware of my spamtastic December posting dealio.

This is a classification of 2006 films, taken from my livejournal. It was posted in late 2006, and represents my views back then - some might've changed but overall I pretty much feel the same way. Consider the context when reading!


Creme de la creme

Omkara
Lage Raho Munnabhai

Both films exceptionally clever, entertaining and worth rewatching (I've already re-watched both an unbelievable amount of times). These are my two top favourites of the year and both have those tiny little things I'd fix about them, they're still awesome cinema in my eyes. Omkara naturally more of the artistically ambitioned, drama-heavy type and LRM commercial comedy, but both have fantastic writing and directing behind them and top-notch performances.


OMG-worthy

Rang De Basanti - All around interesting, daring movie. Fantastic cast and soundtrack, plus no matter what you thought of the ending, it did leave its mark on the audience. Good writing, too - I connected with the characters pretty much instantly.

Being Cyrus - Had its share of flaws (no debutant director can make that great a film) but boy, was it good. I'm totally biased of course, as a fan of Saif and a fan of really odd, black comedy type of films, but all the same, this movie pretty much succeeded in what it was going for.


Jaan-e-Mann - Same as BC when it comes to debutant directors. Shirish Kunder might be a overcocky a-hole but JEM still brought something wonderful on the table. Fab soundtrack, hilarious moments, even good when it gets emotional. Severe flaws but still filled me with all kinds of glee; the parody and self-referential humor owns me.

Flawed but oh oh so dear to me

Fanaa - I think the hype killed this movie for many, which is sad, because when you love it, you just do it and all the bad stuff just seems unimportant. That is, they don't distract me from enjoying this movie. The fantastic performances and the grippingly angsty love story blew me away. It could be so much better, I'll admit, but I'll take it as it is, flawed and wonderful.

Good, enjoyable

Pyar Ke Side Effects - It's like Hollywood shipped their format of romantic comedy to Mumbai, when they realized they couldn't do anything with said format, and the Indians spun it into a fantastically entertaining little romantic film.

36 China Town - Mispromoted, funny film with a working cast, the least annoying Himesh soundtrack of the year. Convinced me that Shahid's okay, Kareena can be hilarious and that Akshaye Khanna can be smoking hot. Okay, the last one didn't need no proving but all the same. One minus remains Upen Patel.


Dhoom 2 - Abhithik hotness, hilarious stunts and Uday being a clown definitely made it a film worth seeing. The girls I could easily erase, except Bips on the second half maybe, and the soundtrack is madly catchy. Overall vapid as hell but still great fun.

Better luck next time!

Phir Hera Pheri - Hit all the right notes on the first half and all the wrong ones during the second. Not a bad sequel but still the worst of the lot.

Ankahee - Esha Deol's learning how to act! Yay! Sadly the movie is hopelessly boring on the second half.

Gangster - Style over substance. I liked parts of it, visually nice (I love 'em filters!) but still failed to impress. Damn catchy, though rip-off soundtrack, though.

Malamaal Weekly - Goddammit, Priyadarshan, can we stop with the copy game? This one provided a few laughs but the shameless copying takes away a lot of the fun in hindsight.

I'll pay you NOT to make any more movies

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna - I don't understand how a film can aggravate me so much. I really don't. Whatever positives there were, well, they didn't make it worth the annoying, dragging second half.

--

Thoughts now: Wow, I was strangely glued onto Bollywood in 2006! But then, it was all too easy to be, considering all the fantastic movies that came out then. I can't believe I saw Malamaal Weekly and the likes - what was I thinking? I remember being hugely opposed to the Don remake, and 'lo and behold, when I eventually saw it, I quite enjoyed it. Shows you how minds change with the times..

I still adore LRM, RDB and Omkara. Rewatches of Jaan-e-mann showed me that film doesn't really impact me as it did on the first watch. I am thankful for it, though, because it showed me how enjoyable I can find Akshay Kumar - this was I believe the first film what I loved him in. Seeing Fanaa again has shown me I still adore the film, if only for the incredible second half.

Been a long while since I last watched Being Cyrus. It's a good film, but not one to watch on a rainy day. Still, 2006 was perhaps the best year to be a Saif fan ...ever. Oh, the good old days..

Indian Film Advent Calendar #7: Wordless Saif Edition.

(Sources: Dil Chahta Hai DVD extras; Eklavya; photoshoot; Ek Hasina Thi, Darna Mana Hai.)

Indian Film Advent Calendar #6: Cute, cuter, Siddharth.

LINK

Great Siddharth!dancing in his latest Telugu film, Oye / Oye. Some pretty odd moves and as a song it's not a huge favourite (hello autotune!), but still worth checking out. I also really like this song:

LINK

Spoiler! He looks really awesome in this movie. I'll try to screencap and review it later this month.

Edited layout-breaking videos into links.

Indian Film Advent Calendar #5: Sholay, film like a novel.

The best way I've been able to explain to a non-fan of Indian films why they're so very long when compared to European or American films, is the book comparison. An American or a European film is like a short story; short, succinct, lacking the layers, the backstories and the variety of characters. An Indian film is like a novel; all of the plot twists contained, using time to tell the backstories in whole instead of just referencing them, often without a structure that's set in stone. (If you've read a book and then watched the Hollywood film version of the same story, you'll know what I mean.)

That's not to say shorter "western" films can't be layered and deep when it comes to storytelling. It's just that the format is different, the way of laying out the story is different. Editing, especially with older Hindi films, is different.

I don't know a better example of this than Sholay, which I recently rewatched with some total newbies. The film's a bit too long for their unaccustomed attention span, but regardless of this, they enjoyed it.

I think a part of Sholay's appeal is exactly the fact it's like a novel. It sets up the premise; Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar) seeking two crooks, Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) and Veeru (Dharmendra), who he had an altercation with in the past, but who also saved his life. Cue the train scene, packed with action. Unless you read a plot description or the back of the DVD box, you have the benefit of suspense. Why does Thakur want contact with these two criminals? An extended comedy sequence at the jail and a song (legendary Yeh Dosti) later, we finally find out: Thakur pays them to nab the villain Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). With a fateful flip of the coin, Jai and Veeru agree to this.

Sholay was the first 70's film I ever watched, back in the day, and I'm glad I saw it without the incredible weight of expectations learning about its fame would've put on the movie. It was all new, and it was all great.

It lays out all of its plot strands so fantastically it's hard to get bored despite the length. We've got the friendship of Jai and Veeru, and their task of catching Gabbar zinda (alive), as Thakur emphasizes. We've got romance of two sorts; full of sparks between Basanti (Hema Malini) and Veeru, and more intense, filled with silent looks and a sense of longing between Radha (Jaya Bhaduri) and Jai. We've got the eventually revealed backstory, the reason for Thakur's longing of revenge, and we've got the delicious glimpses of Gabbar's revolting cruelty.

We've got songs, not classics just because of the music but because of the story they're woven into. We've got comedy, like Jai discussing matrimony of Veeru with Basanti's aunt, a scene that had even my newbie friends laughing loudly.

We've got the side characters, like the Imaam of the village, and his son, and we've got plenty of action scenes.

In retrospect, after tens of 70's masala films watched, I can truly appreciate that Sholay isn't just a favourite, a film universally loved, it's not just a well-made movie. It's also a pretty unique story. The village setting is one reason for it and a villain that's not rich in a glitzy manner, but simply filled with greed of the rustic kind; Gabbar doesn't steal gold, he steals grain. He doesn't have the masala staple westernized girlfriend hanging at his arm, either.

The "lost-and-found" storyline of so many a 70's masala film is also missing (for examples, see pretty much every Manmohan Desai film). In fact, there is a curious lack of family for nearly all the characters. Jai and Veeru only have each other. Thakur has Radha and his servant to accompany him. Basanti has her mausi (aunty), a caring but mostly comical bond. Gabbar has Sambha but pretty much everybody else is exposable in his eyes. An interesting twist to the story is that these orphans, these lonely individuals, don't seem to be that sad or lonely. Friendship for Jai and Veeru, independence for Basanti.. They may have lost family but they never gain it magically back, and it all feels very right.

Sholay is a journey. It deserves nearly every minute of its lengthy running time, considering the story, the themes, the plot strands, the characters. It really is like a novel, not afraid to elaborate on its characters with long-winded flashbacks or not entirely needed comedy scenes. And why shouldn't it, when the outcome is as enjoyable as it is.

And to end this post, have a screencap of the pair who became by go-to actors for me when it came to oldies, Hema Malini and Dharmendra. I loved them in this and many films later, still think this is the greatest time they've ever been paired together.

PS. Need a reason to rewatch? Why not catalogue Dharmendra's hair continuity mistakes in a chart of some kind? My favourite look is the Soorma Bhopali scenes look:

Good times, good times.

Indian Film Advent Calendar #4: Wordless Vinod Day.

(Films; Sacha Jhuthaa, Shaque [with Shabana], Patthar Aur Payal [with Hema], Mera Gaon Mera Desh [with Chayya Laxmi], Meera, Amar Akbar Anthony [with Shabana].)