Disappointments, small & large: Nautanki Saala & Shuddh Desi Romance.

The more films I watch, the more I begin to understand that while there are always plenty of discussions to be had about various aspects of films, the one thing you can't really debate is the viewer's connection to characters. At times films click and succeed in establishing that connection - sometimes it's writing, sometimes it's acting, quite often it's everything coming together beautifully to make you care for the characters, and what happens to them.

Nautanki Saala, a romantic comedy based on a French film Apres vous (adapted with permission, I think), is one of those films where I do like all of the characters but I'm not fully engaged with their journey. Ayushmann Khurana plays Ram, a theater director who saves the life of a layabout Mandar Lele (Kunal Roy Kapoor) and is thus responsible for his life. He hires Mandar and attempts to secretly get back Mandar's former love, Nandini (Pooja Salvi). Things get complicated when Ram falls for her instead.

There are numerous things to like about this film. For one, it's very funny - a particular scene at a restaurant had me laughing until I couldn't breathe, and all the actors do a good job of heightening the comedy. Secondly, the parallels between to Ramayana-inspired play and the actual events was pretty fun. I liked the principal cast, and the film was never boring or tedious. Yet, perhaps there was some tiny bit of chemistry missing in the love story, or maybe the complicated premise robbed that part of the film a bit of its romance, or maybe I was just in an odd mood that day. It's hard to tell sometimes. The bottom line is, I liked the movie, but not as much as I was hoping to. It's making me doubt my initial fondness for Ayushmann, to be perfectly honest - if I liked, but didn't love Vicky Donor, and now I'm getting largely the same reaction to his next movie, maybe he's not yet that good a performer. 

Shuddh Desi Romance delivers precisely nothing that the name implies, which I don't fault it for. I don't need my romances to be chaste, or particularly traditional. Sadly, what the film is also missing is good characterisation. It starts out fast, and introduces its main characters Raghuram (Sushant Singh Rajput) and Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra) quickly as well. They're on their way to a wedding - his - and she's one of the hired guests. He's having doubts, as the marriage is arranged, they talk on the bus, she smokes a cigarette, they kiss. Later, after he's escaped his wedding by literally running away, she seeks him out.

Things move so fast that by the time, about 30 minutes into the movie, when the couple is already running into their first signs of trouble, I began to wonder whether I cared all that much. I sort of knew them as characters, I suppose, but there was never enough establishing them, or their feelings for one another, as to help me have that connection that is so crucial in a film like this. Later this troubled twosome is joined by newcomer Vaani Kapoor's character Tara, seen earlier almost marrying Raghuram, and I had to ask myself, "What the hell is this movie trying to go for?".

Admittedly, it's not easy to write believable young people who are confused about what society wants out of them, and what they themselves want. But some of the vulnerabilities and complications in these characters seem so manufactured and nonsensical. They love each other but they don't want to commit, because one of them says that the other one could never commit seriously and the other one takes offence at that. It got to the point where I just felt all these arguments and endless rapidfire dialogues were pointless - if there were layers to be found, I couldn't make any sense of them. Was something just lost in translation? Or was I tuning out because I just didn't care?

I feel bad because this film got so many things right - I enjoy Parineeti Chopra's performances, and she had a relaxed chemistry with Sushant Singh Rajput. Vaani Kapoor was not bad for a debutante actress, and her smile gave a strong impression that her character was always two steps ahead of everybody else. (Interestingly enough, she'll be the lead in the Tamil/Telugu remake of Band Baaja Baarat, alongside Nani.) The music was cheery and quite fun. The cinematography was stunning, and made me want to visit Jaipur. But that connection, that investment to these characters and what happens to them, just wasn't there.

Barfi.

As much as we may all miss the UTV hand, the new opener of UTV movies, with the three dancers and the banging drums, remains an early promise of a quality picture - especially when it comes to good, interesting stories. This is also the case with Barfi, the tale of a death-mute man (played by Ranbir Kapoor) in Darjeeling and how his extraordinary character and joie de vivre impacts the lives of two women - Shruti (Ileana) who Barfi falls in love with, and Jhilmil (Priyanka Chopra), the autistic girl Barfi knows from childhood.

This was India's Foreign Oscar contender of last year, and thus I am rather late to view and review the film. I guess one thing that could be said of it was the mixed reaction - while people applauded the performances, there was some grumbling about "inspired" scenes, which is precisely the kind of thing that puts a damper on a movie such as this one. Barfi tries very hard to be heartfelt, a bit of a tear-jerker and generally moving. For the most part, I felt like it succeeded. The performances are good, and the characters do come alive. The light-hearted comedy, even though quite silly and physical at times, never feels as out of place as it could be - Barfi does a good job in being half this sort of magical realism with its silliness, but also being a grounded film. I liked the film, but I didn't love it - at no point was I moved as much as I think the film wanted me to be. It didn't quite stick with me, despite having such good intentions, and generally doing a good job of fulfilling my expectations.

I guess as ever when stars of Ranbir and Priyanka's calibre pick up really unusual or challenging roles for them, that's the main discussion point of the film. I've got nothing of substance to contribute there - I thought both did well, as expected, and probably served some award nods for their performances, but I just didn't feel that special connection to either character, or the story itself. So despite all its goodwill and good facets, in the end, Barfi was just an okay film for me. 

Monsoon Shootout: exploring the what if.

I had no idea what to expect from Monsoon Shootout - I did not recognise the director, didn't look through the cast, and the festival website merely described this as a shooting-filled policewallahs vs goons type of story, essentially nothing new under the sun. I hadn't heard it had been praised in Cannes, I hadn't even heard it had been to Cannes, and I certainly didn't expect what is surely one of the best off-beat films of the year. 

Amit Kumar (son of Kishore, incidentally) directs the story of rookie cop Adi (Vijay Varma in a confident performance), entering the police force, only to encounter deeply corrupt, inhumane police misbehaviour on his first day on the job. Khan (Neeraj Kabi), his superior, is more or less a crook in a uniform - willing to go to any length necessary, where Adi wants to stick to doing things the right way. Quickly he finds himself in pursuit of a suspect, Shiva (Nawazuddin Siddiqui - I gasped in anticipation the moment I recognized him), and has to make a decision, soaked in the monsoon rain - to shoot or not to shoot.

As the narrative starts to go through every possibly scenario, it does a rather remarkable thing of fooling its audience. Even as I knew that the scene I was watching was just a "what if", I was engaged with the story. I was living through it. I was inside this world of slum-dwellers and morally corrupt policemen, of questionable guilt and innocence. 

Nawazuddin Siddiqui has been spectacular in pretty much everything he's been in as of late, so it feels almost tired to sing his praises. He's very effective here - against  the wide-eyed Adi, who's coming face-to-face with tough moral decisions every day, Shiva's varying level of guilt and malevolence is clearly depicted in Siddiqui's performance. Tanishtha Chatterjee as his wife Rani is equally good.

The film is currently doing rounds in the festival circuit, but when it finally gets a proper release in India, I bet it'll make many people's "Best of 2013" lists. As with many stories, the setting and the beginning are nothing new - there have been countless films where cops are as bad as the criminals they're trying to catch, and where politicians conspire with gangsters in an urban setting. But the different take on these themes in this setting, and the excellent acting makes Monsoon Shootout completely worth it. 

Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani - precisely that, and then some.

Two years ago I saw Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara, a comedy-drama about love, travel, friendship, youth and a little bit about growing up. I reviewed it with a slightly rambling audio review, and if you're too lazy to give that a listen, I'll recap my thoughts on the film: I liked it, but I didn't love it, and the whole experience made me rather pensive about what it means to grow up as a viewer. Suddenly things you adored about films are things you're no longer impressed by, and might even start to find annoying. I would have loved Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara, when I was younger, because it's heartfelt cheesiness and focus on male friendship above all else would have worked its magic on me, and everything that I still found good about the film - the music, the performances, the comedy - would've been heightened further.

I don't bring this up to draw a direct comparison between these two movies, even though they share a cast member (the darling Kalki Koechlin) and some common themes of youth and friendship and travel or because I saw both films in the same theater at Helsinki International Film Festival. I bring this other film up because the experience I had with it, and the experience I had with Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani to me seem like siblings - watching Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani was also a very personal experience, and some of the things I loved about it may be completely universal but at the same time I felt like the movie was talking to me. Just me.

Ayan Mukerji does an absolutely stellar job in wringing something really fresh out of the scene we've seen a million times in Hindi films: the uptight, studious girl Naina (Deepika Padukone) with the flirty, out-going dude Bunny (Ranbir Kapoor), at a train station, in the beginning of a journey they're about to go on together. A part of the triumph is just that instead of being these characters we've seen before a million times, as clusters of characteristics that form polar opposites (she's serious, he's funny and so forth), Naina and Bunny are actual characters. They form a chemistry and a friendship that is very much the extrovert making the introvert enjoy life and loosen up a little, but it's also more than that. 

The film is fluffy and funny and enjoyable, but it's also got this layer of realism about its young characters. The two other friends that complete the central cast - Kalki Koechlin as Aditi and Aditya Roy Kapoor as Avi - are not just friends to our lead characters, they have their own motivations and aspirations as well. These young characters accomplish their aspirations, fail to, change their aspirations because they've changed as people, all the things that people do at this point in their lives, when the world feels completely conquerable. 

I don't mean this to sound like an over-enthusiastic celebration of youth - I'm sure the question about aspirations, and what you want your life to be are relevant to many people at various stages in life. It's not an age thing, necessarily. But I guess that's where the personal film experience comes into play; I felt like YJHD was asking all the questions I'm asking myself right now. Bunny's enthusiasm for travel gains a new layer on the second half, when he has a series of conversations about his new job and his chosen nomadic life style with his friends from back home, really struck me. Travel is about living life to the fullest, in many ways, and gaining new experiences, but it can also hide something - a literal escapism from home, or from settling down. After all, if you never stop, you also never stop to think about where you're actually going, and where you should be going, or staying, instead.

If you've not seen this movie, reading this review might make it seem like a particularly serious fare, which I assure you it is not. The reason I fell in love with these characters was because they feel true to life, but also because they're just so funny. The narrative is woven with delightful, bouncy song-and-dance, from the opening number that features a great guest star appearance and there's rarely a moment when the film stops being entertaining. I love the depiction of friendship - joyous but not without problems, and not without being able to overcome those problems, and there is also a healthy friendship depicted between the two women at the centre of the film.

Is there anything wrong with the film? Well, no film is flawless, and there are a few comedic side characters who I did roll my eyes at a little. But for the most part, it's been a while since I've been this smitten, walking out of a Hindi film. I'm sure a part of it is just the giddiness of the theater experience (such a rarity for me) but most of the credit goes to the script: taking tropes I like, and turning them into more fleshed out characters with interesting dynamics and facets that just seem very true to life, all of these little things came together in YJHD rather beautifully. I haven't spoken word one about the two leads in this film, but it's almost like I don't feel the need to point them out specifically - I already know Deepika Padukone is definitely among the better new faces of the past couple of years, and Ranbir Kapoor is good, despite still not being a favourite of mine. Their chemistry is easy and comfortable here, and something I'm sure I'll enjoy in many future viewings.

Lootera: robbed of attachment.

Lootera is an atmospheric period drama with many good facets; the music, the cinematography and the acting all stand out as great. In the backdrop of 1950's India, a somewhat sheltered landowner's daughter falls in love with an archaeologist visiting her father's land. Things unfold slowly, and the film does a good job of showing things, rather than telling. The young actors, Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh, do really well in their roles - there's a new maturity in both of them that shows what they're capable in the hands of a good director.

With all these things going for it, I was surprised at myself for not loving this film - or perhaps not as much surprised as disappointed. The thing is, as the undercurrent of tragedy in this tale of love become a prominent feature of the story on the latter half, I heard sniffling around me in the half-empty film festival screening, and then I realised it - I wasn't emotionally engaged with the film, unlike these other viewers. I wasn't emotionally engaged at all. I wasn't living through the story with the characters, like you do in a particularly good film, but instead, I felt as if I was looking at them from the outside.

There are a few reasons for this, but I feel like biggest reason was probably the way that the story references changes in landowner (zamindari) law and the way the newly independent India was changing its societal structure, chipping away at the privileged class whose fortunes had been handed down to them, generation through generation. Sonakshi's character Pakhi comes from this very privileged upbringing - she's always had everything, and early on in the film there's a scene where she uses her social standing to benefit her in a rather manipulative way, against one of her servants. This is not a horrible scene, but it rubbed me the wrong way - if I was supposed to sympathise with this character, that scene established her as spoiled and unlikable. When Ranveer's character Varun enters the picture and falls for her, I found myself wondering why he likes her so much. I couldn't emerge myself in their love story, so when it unfolds into heart-wrenching drama, I was just left sitting there, watching, thinking, "Yeah, okay, so now this is happening I guess." Detached. The one thing you don't want to be in a film of this kind.

It's unfortunate, and it's possibly one of those things that's changed in me over the years. I'm going to sound like a Marxist when I type this but I can honestly say that having a perspective on things like societal or economic class is something I've gained in the past couple of years when it comes to Indian films. It's not something I've really thought about before. Of course, it's not something I think about all the time, with every movie - I'm perfectly fine with following the lives of the hyper-privileged in my fluffy Indian entertainment. On the other hand, when a film references changing times and then doesn't explore the topic in an intelligent way, or adequately to my liking, I guess I lose some of my enjoyment of the film. Lootera is wonderful in many ways, but I wasn't attached to it, and in the greater scheme of things, that's probably both on me and the film itself.

Aurangzeb - throwback that doesn't throw us very far.

When the premise of Aurangzeb begins quickly unfolding at the beginning of the film, I was instantly reminded of those 70's masala films where the backstory is told in 20 minutes, before we even get to the title screen. The tale of twins switching places, the importance of family (and nature versus nurture), inheritance of business and of values, these are all themes that crop up in Hindi films time and time again, but something about this particular set up reminded me more of 70's than of 2010's. And since I love 70's Hindi films, this was a very positive association.

Unfortunately, though, this is very much a film of the 2010's. There is no Pran as the dad or as the villain, there is no diamond smuggling, or divine intervention thanks to pious son praying regularly. There are no snazzy villain lairs or cigar-smoking baddies called Robert, or Helen wearing animal print while dancing. Instead, we get plots centering around more grounded, real issues – corrupt policemen making deals with corrupt politicians, making money alongside corrupt businessmen, off the backs of the common man, farmers and villagers (who are barely seen, of course, because in the end the human drama is all about those with power). Our modern night club scenes have whiskey but they also have cocaine. Our bad guys are sometimes our good guys, and vice versa – the moral ambiguity allows characters to switch sides in the middle of the film.

It's not that one is inherently better than the other, of course. There's a reason why 70's films are as they are, in the style that they are, and there are reasons why modern films have a different take on things. Aurangzeb is an okay movie, but it's not an excellent movie, and perhaps one reason for that is the way that its premise could've worked better at a different time, in a different setting. That's not to say that family drama in modern films feels dated – it's just that here, the modern dating doesn't really enhance the melodrama.

Arjun Kapoor plays twins Vishal and Ajay. Ajay is the spoiled, despicable heir apparent to their father Yashwardhan's (Jackie Shroff) empire, whereas Vishal has lived a good, clean life with his mother, thinking that the policeman (Anupam Kher), who saved him and his mother's lives, is his father. Arya (Prithviraj Sukumaran), the real son of the policeman, discovers Vishal and his mother upon his father's death, and the head of the family, Arya's uncle (Rishi Kapoor) decides to make Vishal infiltrate Yashwardhan's connections by posing as Ajay. Ajay is kidnapped, and Vishal begins living life as him, but things become complicated when Vishal begins to sympathise with his real father...

Perhaps the best thing about the film are the performances, particularly that of Arjun Kapoor. I didn't have very high hopes for him – he was wooden in Ishaqzaade, where I hated his character, and his performance did little to save the character from bad writing. Yet he does manage to carve two separate characters out of the twins he plays. Of course, the contrast helps – Vishal is soft where Ajay is hard, Vishal has humanity where Ajay seems to have none. I find it appalling how the story tries to carve a “lovable rogue” out of Ajay, when he is simply just an appalling human being for the way he treats people, particularly his girlfriend Ritu. I didn't see anything here that blew me away, but it's still early days, so hopefully his future roles are good.

Prithviraj and some of the older cast all do a fine job. The music that underscores the melodrama mostly seems to take away from it – it's always too loud or too dramatic for the situations it's trying to heighten. Perhaps the biggest failure of the movie is the lack of connection I felt to each character. The moral ambiguity messes with that in a way that kind of turned me off. We follow Vishal and Arya quite closely but I didn't really root for either in a big way at any point of the film, and as far as story-telling goes, that's a pretty big failure. Arya is set up as being corrupt from the first moments of the film, and Vishal just kind of comes off as pathetic at first, neither really endears me to them until the plot takes a few twists and turns.

Even in all its accomplishments in setting up an ambiguous world full of corruption, back-stabbing and intrigue, Aurangzeb is pretty unremarkable. I wouldn't recommend it, unless you were a huge, huge fan of one of the principals.

Go Goa Gone: just don't go.

It's really difficult to discuss Go Goa Gone without talking about my expectations for it. This was on my radar for a number of reasons: the directors had hit home-runs with both of their previous ventures, 99 and Shor in the City, Saif Ali Khan was involved (and I was hopeful that these two directors would bring out the best in him, as he was obviously passionate about the project, having a producer credit and all), the mix of stoner comedy meets zombie film seemed interesting, and finally, Kunal Khemu was among the cast. All signs pointed to this being an awesome film, especially when the first trailer made me chuckle a lot.

Three friends (the stoner loser, the nerd and the average guy trying to improve himself) go to Goa, one of them finds a girl, one of them gets laid, and all of them find themselves in a zombie apocalypse with a Delhiwalla gangster who pretends to be Russian. Surely this situation is fertile ground for some jump scares and some comedy, but what is truly disappointing about Go Goa Gone is exactly how it fails to live up to its premise at all.

The characters are the film's first failure. They're dumb but not lovable, and most importantly, they're flimsy. We're supposed to care about them, so it matters to us that they're in this desperate peril, and we're meant to chuckle at their idiocy, but the story fails to establish the characters as protagonists you could actually root for. Simply put, they're all pretty unlikable. Saif Ali Khan's odd badass Boris should be the kind of quirky side character who makes the film, but instead he too comes off as slightly tired. Are there funny one liners? Yes, but they're all the ones you saw in the trailer.  

I admit one reason for my disappointment might just be zombie fatigue. By the time this trend hit Indian cinema, English entertainment is absolutely inundated with zombie fiction, be it riffs on Pride and Prejudice (now with zombies!) or Brad Pitt saving the world from zombies, or Walking Dead exploring human drama (amidst zombies). But I also think that this could've felt fresh in the Indian context, and it's sad that it doesn't.

One reading of the zombies in GGG is that the provide a metaphor for excessive drug use, but this is a very accommodating way of looking at it – the film is not exactly rich with social commentary, as some of the best zombie films are. The extras don't make for very good zombies, even though the make up work was commendable, but perhaps the worst failing of the zombie genre is that it never feels like the protagonists are truly in danger. It's not scary, nor is it comically over the top enough to be funny. There are bits and pieces where the premise of zombies and stoner comedy come together, but those little sparks of life just aren't enough to liven up this film.  

I'm glad I saw it, in the sense that I didn't really believe others who said it wasn't that good, before witnessing this limp piece of film myself. It could've been so awesome, and yet it's just maybe okay at best, boring at worst.

A decade in a life, and in film.

There is something poetic about the fact that while Indian cinema celebrates 100 years of existence, this year I can celebrate the tenth year anniversary of watching my first Bollywood film. If you don't know the story of the how that happened, you can read all about here. I didn't follow Indian films actively right away, obviously - I stumbled around, finding films I thought I might like, and ones I thought I ought to watch. It was only two years later, in 2005, that I actually began watching films on a less sporadic, accidental basis. I began to really get to know the stars, and look beyond the clichés. I began hanging out on Bollywood forums and websites (well, mainly the BollyWHAT? ones) and I made a friend in my city, who let me borrow a bunch of films and introduced me to so many new things, be it older Hindi cinema or the wonderful worlds of Southie cinema.

In 2007 I was already somewhat of a veteran, in that I knew what I liked, what I didn't like and what I wanted to see more of, and started this blog to showcase my fascination to the world. Ever since then, it's been my own personal opinion repository, one I sometimes maintain with extreme regularity and passion and that I sometimes let fall to the wayside in a rather regrettable manner. My love for Indian cinema remains ever-present but fluctuates - one month I'm watching three films in an evening, the next I haven't watched a single film, or even rewatched an old favourite.

The love has never gone away, though, and Indian films is the one fandom I think I'll always come back to. Therefore it's probably odd to most people that in my time watching these films, in all my time taking in their sounds and sights and cultural ideas, I've never actually been to India.

And unlike for most people, I can't even claim that it's been an issue of time or money. I've had enough time and money to travel to other far away corners of the world - I've been to the US, twice, South Korea, twice and I've even swung by the United Kingdom enough times to make up the money for a plane ticket to India. But travel is an odd beast, and my problem with India has been that I haven't wanted to go alone, nor has traveling alone to India been recommended to me.

Weirdly enough, even as I've expanded my horizons and gained more in-depth knowledge about Indian society, politics, history and culture as a whole, what eventually made me finally go to India was film-related. I was exchanging emails with a long-time friend who I'd initially met online but eventually got to know face-to-face as well, when visiting her country. She was also a fan of Indian films, so I wrote to her about how much I was looking forward to what is surely the most curious casting in the most bombastic film saga of recent memory, Aamir Khan in Dhoom 3. Jokingly I asked her, "You wouldn't want to swing by India at the end of this year?" and to my great surprise, she replied she'd love to visit India (a second visit for her). So we began talking, and then we began planning, and now we're booking.

Are your eye-brows raised? "Did she just write she's going to India to see Dhoom 3, out of all the movies in all the years, Dhoom goddamn 3?" No, that's not it. It's more one of those wonderful things where circumstances just come together and collide to create a new thing. My former music teacher probably shows Bollywood to her students on a yearly basis. It just happened so that I was the only one in that class receptive to Hindi cinema's charms, and wanted to see more. Similarly, I've wanted to go to India for over 10 years now, but have never had a friend to go with, and then suddenly I realise there is a friend who is not only willing to go, but is happy to go see Dhoom 3 and embraces the idea (and whose tastes in film tend to line up with mine), and the release of Dhoom 3 happens to coincide with a decent time to go travel in India (not too hot, not too damp) and when it's convenient for us two Westerners to go, as it's Christmas holidays.

So you see, Dhoom 3 just happens to be at the intersection of all these good things. I don't expect worlds out of it, as a movie - it's just a movie, starring some people I like, and it's a movie I'd probably see regardless of the circumstances. The fact that circumstances just happened to fall together, after my joking question, was kind of perfect. I'll be the first one to tell you that Indian culture, or cultures, are rich beyond belief and to only watch the films would be missing out on the various aspects, both positive and negative, of an interesting nation and its people. At the same, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the films form the backbone of my personal attachment and interest in India. Thus it feels fitting that I'll be heading to India with somebody that I don't have to drag into cinemas against their will, and instead can go see films with, and visit all the historical, cultural and just plain interesting sights as well.

I'm so happy to be going to India, because it feels like a long overdue visit, and I'm even happier that it feels like I'm going to appreciate it a lot more, now that I've done my share of reading and studying India, and the fact that I'm going with somebody I like, and who I know is interested in similar things as I am. It also feels very fitting, that I'm going near the anniversary of when I first got into Indian films - almost as if it was always meant to be.

Kai Po Che.

I liked Kai Po Che. I watched it months ago, alongside the two other films I recently reviewed, and while it wasn't my favourite of the batch, it was probably the most well made of the bunch. It was in that considerate UTV style I think we've all gotten used to; interesting characters, quality production, attention paid to the story and much faith given to the director. The picture above namedrops Rock On and Rang De Basanti, two hallmarks of the quality we've come to expect from UTV, and two films I personally love.

So it was inevitable that I would begin to wonder why I didn't love Kai Po Che. It wasn't like there was anything considerable missing in the film - it was just a really good effort, packed with young talent, and a good story told at a decent pace, reflecting all the various events that shaped the lives of these young men in Gujarat. Carla's review mentions she's tired of stories about young men, and in all honesty, maybe I am, too, and maybe that's okay, given how many of my favourite films are about young men and their friendships.

On the other hand, this film makes me so pensive, because it makes me think about how I've changed as a viewer. I still get giddy about the same things - I love films with great music, fantastic colours, goofy action and red-hot chemistry between the leads. These things are what drew me into watching Indian films ten years ago. I still adore the masala and the quirk, but nowadays I also love older cinema, more sombre films, films that weave in politics and history and all the not-so-happy parts of Indian society as well as the bright colours of the festivals and lavish sarees. Films like Kai Po Che certainly provide a balance between the two, which is why it's a good film - it's just not a film that I happened to love.

Inkaar.

Whether Inkaar fails or succeeds seems solely dependent on what you want out of it as a film, and what your expectations are. If you're looking for a fairly grounded, realistic and serious treatise on sexual harassment in the urban Indian work place, you're going to be disappointed. This film does not make a progressive statement about sexual harassment, either; it portrays a lot of sexist characters saying or doing sexist things, and the main female character battling, but not necessarily always triumphing over, these prejudices.

If, on the other hand, what you're looking for is a case study of two very driven individuals, getting into a complicated relationship and complicating it further with their own inadvisable actions, playing rather vicious mind games with one another, and sabotaging each other at every turn, well, this is your film. Chitrangda Singh and Arjun Rampal grace it with their powerful, interesting chemistry and solid performances. The more the film progresses, the less it becomes about sexual harassment in general - what can happen when emotions and lust enter the work place - and more specifically about Rahul and Maya, these two characters and their strange relationship.

Knowing that I would hate the film, if it did try to say something about sexual harassment, and then reverted back to the same old tropes and clichés, spoken by the more sexist of the film's cast of characters (including Rahul), I made a conscious decision to mainly see it as a story between these two characters. This benefited the film enormously - it's a slightly uncomfortable watch, where the writing isn't always as top-notch as you wish it were, and the acting elevates it only just so that it becomes watchable. In the end, I liked it - not for the things it was stating, but for the way these actors decided to play these characters. By the climax, I was gripped by the story. Whether you buy into the end resolution, seems to depend on whether you believe that Rahul and Maya were somehow changed by the events of the film. I think they were, because I bought into these characters in such a powerful way.

I would give it a very hesitant recommendation, however. It's a film I decided to be forgiving to, and enjoyed mainly because of my own forgiveness. I can see how it could be seen as very damaging, regressive, and most of all annoying.