(Audrey) Thane and I are not huge Bollywood fans, but we dabble in the genre from time to time. For one thing, the movies have gotten better over the years in our eyes as singing/dancing is down a bit while plot development is up. For another thing, it’s a good excuse for me to practice listening Hindi. Finally, it’s a cultural experience, and even if I hate it I often force myself to endure culture experiences.

The other night we watched Kaminey, a darkish film about the mafia/drug world of Bombay (i.e. Mumbai).

The movie was recommended by a friend, and it began as so many Indian dvds that we buy do—with a banner saying something to the effect of “please buy this movie, this is only a preview” flashing across the bottom of the screen. This continued to flash on and off throughout the film. We bought the DVD at a legit store, but that’s no protection against bootlegged copies in this country.

About 20 minutes into the film we were thoroughly confused. The main character appeared to be leading two totally different lives that didn’t fit into any possible time structure. We paused the dvd and read the description on the back of our bootlegged copy. Turns out the story features twins, played by the same actor. Upon finding this out, Thane exclaimed, “Geez! Couldn’t they have given one of them a goatee or something to distinguish the two?” Five more minutes of watching revealed that, indeed, one of the two had a goatee, light and skeezy but there nonetheless. Upon listening more closely, I also noticed that one character had a lisp while the other stuttered—obviously distinguishing features to anybody who can speak fluent Hindi (which is neither of us).

We understood the rest of the film fine, but I can’t say I recommend it. I enjoyed far more Slumdog Millionaire, for example, and Jodhaa Akbar. Jodhaa Akbar in particular I highly recommend because it’s about Akbar and the Mughal Empire—don’t take it as legitimate history but it’s a nice reimagination that gets several of the major features of his reign across.

The recent release was a Mahesh Bhatt flick called Tum Mile….Means Found you….more reliably in the movie it means….Got you at last!!!

Mahesh Bhatt is known to be an intelligent director with his own charismatic way of film making…most often with new talents who are underrated or new to the industry. But he has the talent of clinching the crowds due to his innovative presentation and a fresh wave of telling and unfolding the story everytime. Though many times you feel that you are familiar with the story line…still he manages to keep you sit till the end with your fingers crossed.

What is “Tum Mile” all about?

It is a love story told many times on Indian screen. The hero is a painter and happens to love a girl following the love at first sight formulation. The girl is employed too. The hero has a bad patch in between and she earns for both. He feels insecured and also that he is at her mercy. There is a clash of egoes. He gets a job at Australia…the greatest assignment of his life. He expects the girl to follow him. She denies due to her standstill ideologies. They have a verbal clash which doesnt weigh much in the perspective of the love and possessiveness they have for each other. Willingly or unwillingly they part ways for better. They meet each other on the flight to Mumbai after 6 years. Unknown desires and the hidden love sprouts back in each…but none expresses as it is. Thanks for a flood which drenches Mumbai more than a knee height and our hero goes in search of the girl who has been trapped in rain. He plays on his life to save her and in between a few flash back events…both realise that their love never deserved a break up and its high time that they unite back…and it happens at the end with a happy ending.

What to watch out for?

*Old story narrated in a new wave.

*Tender moments of love between the hero and his girl.

*Brilliant performances of both Imran Hashmi…the lover boy on Indian screen as the painter hero and Soha Ali Khan…as the heroine.

*Melodious situational songs with a blind of brilliant scores by Pritam.

*The Mumbai hard rains and the pains taken by the hero to rescue the heroine…amidst their confused love.

*Many bits of flash backs which doesnt disturb the tempo of the movie.

Avoid the movie if:

*You are craving to go for a hardcore entertainer and have fun with your friends.

*If you are not a lover of love films made in a non pacy form.

Ratings:

Acting – ***

Music – ***

Direction – ***

Cinematography – ***

Concept – **

Movie as a whole – ***

Recommendations: Go…and spend a few bucks if you want to watch a “clean well made movie”

Zeenat Aman is one of the most successful heroines in the history of Indian films. She was the trend setter of 1970’s and 80’s. She was the second runner up for Miss India contest and further went on for the Miss Asia Pacific contest and won the title in 1970 before taking the Bollywood queen title. Zeenat Aman was born on 19^th November 1951 in Pune. Her father was one of the screenwriters of the all time hit movie Muhhal-e-Azam. Most of her roles where unconventional and critically acclaimed with a wide modulation of characters ranging from opportunist who leaves her jobless lover for a millionaire (Roti Kapda Aur Makaan), the happy prostitute in Prem Shastra, as a Hippie in Hare Rama Hare Krishna and so on. She has bagged several awards like Filmfare, BFJA, Bollywood Awards, Zee Cine Award are among the few. Today Zeenat Aman is staying with her two sons Azzan and Zahaan. Though she is seen in social functions and award ceremonies she is rarely seen onscreen.

TAMIL FILM OVERVIEW:

The 1980s marked the peak for filmmakers Barathiraja, K Balachandar, K Bhagyaraja, Singeetham Srinivasa Rao and Balu Mahendra who established the uniqueness of Modern Tamil Cinema. At the end of the 80s, Mani Ratnam entered the arena with a freshness in style and perspective.

During the 1990s, S Shankar, Suresh Krishna, K.S Ravikumar, Bharathan, P Vasu, Udhaya Kumar and Agathyan made their mark, although the phenomenal influence of the 80s was obvious, these filmmakers worked more to enhance the technicality of filmmaking. The older filmmakers, despite their legacy and might of storytelling, seemed to have lost their touch. Yet it was Mani Ratnam that took tamil films into the new Millenium.

In the following decade, Kamal Hassan made a reckoning directorial debut, quickly followed by a new breed of filmmakers – Gautham Menon, Bala, Ameer Sultan, K Selvaraghavan, Cheran, S J Suryah, Sasi Shankar, N Linguswamy, Hari, Balaji Shaktivel, Dharani, A R Murugadoss, Radha Mohan, Myshkin, Vishnuvardhan and Vetrimaran. The new breed had split into two dominant kinds of filmmaking – one, the rough, raw emotional grit… and two, the “against-all-odds” entertainer. The identity of the Tamilian seems to be in a state of confusion, grappling between tradition and modernism. Ever since Bala made the tragic ending fashionable, filmmakers compete now for the most pessimistic tragedy they can manufacture, seemingly more for style than substance.

The decade is now at an end… and we stand at the outskirts of a new revolution.

TAMIL FILM FAVOURITES:

A Jagannathan for Thangamagan (1983)

A P Nagarajan for Thillana Mohanambal (1968)

A R Murugadoss for Ghajini (2005)

Agathyan for Kaadhal Kavidhai (1998)

Ameer Sultan for Mounam Pesiyadhe (2002)

Bala for Nandha (2001)

B Ramakrishnaiah Panthulu for Karnan (1963)

Balaji Shaktivel for Kaadhal (2004)

Balu Mahendra for Moondram Pirai (1982)

Bharathan for Thevar Magan (1992)

Bharathiraja for Mudhal Mariyathai (1985)

Cheran for Thavamai Thavamirunthu (2005)

D P Singapuli for Mayavi (2005)

Dharani for Ghilli (2004)

G N Rangarajan for Meendum Kokila (1981)

Gautham Mennon for Kaakha Kaakha (2003)

Gayatri-Pushkar for Oram Po (2007)

Hari for Saamy (2003)

J Mahendran for Johnny (1979)

John Mahendran for Sachein (2005)

K Balachandar for Sindhu Bhairavi (1985)

K Bhagyaraja for Chinna Veedu (1985)

K Nataraj for Anbulla Rajanikant (1984)

K Rangaraj for Naan Paadum Paadal (1984)

K S Prakash Rao for Vasantha Maligai (1972)

K S Ravikumar for Padaiyappa (1999)

K Selvaraghavan for Puthu Pettai (2006)

K Vishwanath for Salangai Oli (1983)

Kamal Hassan for Hai Ram (2000)

M Raja for Santhosh Subramaniyam (2008)

Mani Ratnam for Nayakan (1987)

Muktha V Srinivasan for Simla Special (1982)

Myshkin for Chithiram Pesuthadi (2006)

N Linguswamy for Run (2002)

Nishikant Kamat for Evano Oruvan (2007)

P Vasu for Mannan (1992)

R V Udhaya Kumar for Yejaman (1993)

Radha Mohan for Mozhi (2007)

Rajasekar for Maa Veeran (1986)

S P Muthuraman for Enakul Oruvan (1984)

S J Suryah for Ah Aah: Anbe Aruyire (2005)

S Shankar for Mudhalvan (1999)

Samuthirakani for Naadodigal (2009)

Santhana Bharathi for Vietnam Colony (1994)

Sasi Shankar for Perazhagan (2004)

Seeman for Thambi (2005)

Selva for Pooveli (1998)

Singeetham Srinivasa Rao for Michael Madana Kamarajan (1991)

Suresh Krishna for Annamalai (1992)

Tarun Gopi for Thimiru (2006)

Vetrimaran for Polladhavan (2007)

Vietnam Veetu Sundaram for Gauravam (1973)

Vikraman for Vaanathai Pole (2000)

Vishnuvardhan for Billa (2007)

TAMIL FILM DIRECTORS DESERVING SPECIAL MENTION:

1. Singeetham Srinivasa Rao - Raja Parvai (1981), Pushpak (1988), Apoorva Sahodarargal (1989), Michael Madana Kamarajan (1991), Magalir Mattum (1994), Kadhala Kadhala (1998).

2. S.P. Muthuraman – Priya (1978), Murattu Kaalai (1980), Netri Kann (1981), Pokkiri Raja (1982), Thoongathey Thambi Thoongathey (1983), Payum Puli (1983), Nallavanukku Nallavan (1984), Enakul Oruvan (1984), Sree Raghavendar (1985), Mr. Bharath (1986), Guru Sisyan (1988).

3. Mani Ratnam – Mouna Ragam (1986), Nayakan (1987), Agni Nakshatram (1988), Idhayathai Thirudathe (1989), Anjali (1990), Thalapathi (1991), Roja (1992), Thiruda Thiruda (1993), Bombay (1995), Iruvar (1997), Uyire (1998), Alai Payuthe (2000), Kannathil Muthamittal (2002), Ayitha Ezhuthu (2004), Guru (2007).

4. K. Balachandar – Apoorva Rahangal (1975), Moondru Mudichu (1976), Manmatha Leelai (1976), Avargal (1977), Ninaithale Innikum (1979), Ek Duje Ke Liye (1981), Sindhu Bhairavi (1985), Punnagai Mannan (1986), Unnai Mudiyum Thambi (1988).

5. K. Bhagyaraja – Mouna Geethangal (1981), Indru Poi Naalai Vaa (1981), Antha Ezhu Natkal (1981), Darling Darling Darling (1982), Dhavani Kanavugal (1983), Munthanai Mudichu (1984), Chinna Veedu (1985), Enga Chinna Rasa (1987), Avasara Police 100 (1990).

6. Bharathiraja – Pathinaru Vayathinile (1977), Niram Maaratha Pookal (1979), Nizhalgal (1980), Tik Tik Tik (1981), Kadhal Oviyam (1982), Pudumai Penn (1983), Oru Kaithiyin Diary (1984), Mudhal Mariyathai (1985), Kodi Parakuthu (1989).

7. S Shankar – Gentlemen (1993), Kadhalan (1994), Indian (1996), Jeans (1998), Mudhalvan (1999), Boys (2003), Anniyan (2005), Sivaji (2007).

8. K S Ravikumar – Muthu (1995), Avai Shanmughi (1996), Kondattam (1998), Padayappa (1999), Thenali (2000)

Tamil All Time Box Office Reports Here.

TAMIL FILM OVERVIEW:

The 1980s marked the peak for filmmakers Barathiraja, K Balachandar, K Bhagyaraja, Singeetham Srinivasa Rao and Balu Mahendra who established the uniqueness of Modern Tamil Cinema. At the end of the 80s, Mani Ratnam entered the arena with a freshness in style and perspective.

During the 1990s, S Shankar, Suresh Krishna, K.S Ravikumar, Bharathan, P Vasu, Udhaya Kumar and Agathyan made their mark, although the phenomenal influence of the 80s was obvious, these filmmakers worked more to enhance the technicality of filmmaking. The older filmmakers, despite their legacy and might of storytelling, seemed to have lost their touch. Yet it was Mani Ratnam that took tamil films into the new Millenium.

In the following decade, Kamal Hassan made a reckoning directorial debut, quickly followed by a new breed of filmmakers – Gautham Menon, Bala, Ameer Sultan, K Selvaraghavan, Cheran, S J Suryah, Sasi Shankar, N Linguswamy, Hari, Balaji Shaktivel, Dharani, A R Murugadoss, Radha Mohan, Myshkin, Vishnuvardhan and Vetrimaran. The new breed had split into two dominant kinds of filmmaking – one, the rough, raw emotional grit… and two, the “against-all-odds” entertainer. The identity of the Tamilian seems to be in a state of confusion, grappling between tradition and modernism. Ever since Bala made the tragic ending fashionable, filmmakers compete now for the most pessimistic tragedy they can manufacture, seemingly more for style than substance.

The decade is now at an end… and we stand at the outskirts of a new revolution.

TAMIL FILM FAVOURITES:

A Jagannathan for Thangamagan (1983)

A P Nagarajan for Thillana Mohanambal (1968)

A R Murugadoss for Ghajini (2005)

Agathyan for Kaadhal Kavidhai (1998)

Ameer Sultan for Mounam Pesiyadhe (2002)

Bala for Nandha (2001)

B Ramakrishnaiah Panthulu for Karnan (1963)

Balaji Shaktivel for Kaadhal (2004)

Balu Mahendra for Moondram Pirai (1982)

Bharathan for Thevar Magan (1992)

Bharathiraja for Mudhal Mariyathai (1985)

Cheran for Thavamai Thavamirunthu (2005)

D P Singapuli for Mayavi (2005)

Dharani for Ghilli (2004)

G N Rangarajan for Meendum Kokila (1981)

Gautham Mennon for Kaakha Kaakha (2003)

Gayatri-Pushkar for Oram Po (2007)

Hari for Saamy (2003)

J Mahendran for Johnny (1979)

John Mahendran for Sachein (2005)

K Balachandar for Sindhu Bhairavi (1985)

K Bhagyaraja for Chinna Veedu (1985)

K Nataraj for Anbulla Rajanikant (1984)

K Rangaraj for Naan Paadum Paadal (1984)

K S Prakash Rao for Vasantha Maligai (1972)

K S Ravikumar for Padaiyappa (1999)

K Selvaraghavan for Puthu Pettai (2006)

K Vishwanath for Salangai Oli (1983)

Kamal Hassan for Hai Ram (2000)

M Raja for Santhosh Subramaniyam (2008)

Mani Ratnam for Nayakan (1987)

Muktha V Srinivasan for Simla Special (1982)

Myshkin for Chithiram Pesuthadi (2006)

N Linguswamy for Run (2002)

Nishikant Kamat for Evano Oruvan (2007)

P Vasu for Mannan (1992)

R V Udhaya Kumar for Yejaman (1993)

Radha Mohan for Mozhi (2007)

Rajasekar for Maa Veeran (1986)

S P Muthuraman for Enakul Oruvan (1984)

S J Suryah for Ah Aah: Anbe Aruyire (2005)

S Shankar for Mudhalvan (1999)

Samuthirakani for Naadodigal (2009)

Santhana Bharathi for Vietnam Colony (1994)

Sasi Shankar for Perazhagan (2004)

Seeman for Thambi (2005)

Selva for Pooveli (1998)

Singeetham Srinivasa Rao for Michael Madana Kamarajan (1991)

Suresh Krishna for Annamalai (1992)

Tarun Gopi for Thimiru (2006)

Vetrimaran for Polladhavan (2007)

Vietnam Veetu Sundaram for Gauravam (1973)

Vikraman for Vaanathai Pole (2000)

Vishnuvardhan for Billa (2007)

TAMIL FILM DIRECTORS DESERVING SPECIAL MENTION:

1. Singeetham Srinivasa Rao - Raja Parvai (1981), Pushpak (1988), Apoorva Sahodarargal (1989), Michael Madana Kamarajan (1991), Magalir Mattum (1994), Kadhala Kadhala (1998).

2. S.P. Muthuraman – Priya (1978), Murattu Kaalai (1980), Netri Kann (1981), Pokkiri Raja (1982), Thoongathey Thambi Thoongathey (1983), Payum Puli (1983), Nallavanukku Nallavan (1984), Enakul Oruvan (1984), Sree Raghavendar (1985), Mr. Bharath (1986), Guru Sisyan (1988).

3. Mani Ratnam – Mouna Ragam (1986), Nayakan (1987), Agni Nakshatram (1988), Idhayathai Thirudathe (1989), Anjali (1990), Thalapathi (1991), Roja (1992), Thiruda Thiruda (1993), Bombay (1995), Iruvar (1997), Uyire (1998), Alai Payuthe (2000), Kannathil Muthamittal (2002), Ayitha Ezhuthu (2004), Guru (2007).

4. K. Balachandar – Apoorva Rahangal (1975), Moondru Mudichu (1976), Manmatha Leelai (1976), Avargal (1977), Ninaithale Innikum (1979), Ek Duje Ke Liye (1981), Sindhu Bhairavi (1985), Punnagai Mannan (1986), Unnai Mudiyum Thambi (1988).

5. K. Bhagyaraja – Mouna Geethangal (1981), Indru Poi Naalai Vaa (1981), Antha Ezhu Natkal (1981), Darling Darling Darling (1982), Dhavani Kanavugal (1983), Munthanai Mudichu (1984), Chinna Veedu (1985), Enga Chinna Rasa (1987), Avasara Police 100 (1990).

6. Bharathiraja – Pathinaru Vayathinile (1977), Niram Maaratha Pookal (1979), Nizhalgal (1980), Tik Tik Tik (1981), Kadhal Oviyam (1982), Pudumai Penn (1983), Oru Kaithiyin Diary (1984), Mudhal Mariyathai (1985), Kodi Parakuthu (1989).

7. S Shankar – Gentlemen (1993), Kadhalan (1994), Indian (1996), Jeans (1998), Mudhalvan (1999), Boys (2003), Anniyan (2005), Sivaji (2007).

8. K S Ravikumar – Muthu (1995), Avai Shanmughi (1996), Kondattam (1998), Padayappa (1999), Thenali (2000)

Tamil All Time Box Office Reports Here.

Sita (Nandita Das) and Radha (Shabana Azmi), Deepa Mehta’s Fire

Jules (Keira Knightley) and Jess (Parminder Nagra), Gurinder Chadha’s Bend it Like Beckham

Dear Friends,

This is a continuation of my previous blog on Indian films: I dealt with Lagaan, Bombay, Guru, included comments on Mississippi Masala and Charulata, with links to Water and Before It Rains; instead of adding yet more comments, particularly since one of my readers complained about the length of the post, I thought I’d make a separate one for the work of Deepa Mehta and Gurinda Chadha, especially since the tabooed theme of lesbianism unites these two films.

I spent Thursday afternoon watching Gurinder Chadha’s Bend it Like Beckham after having read Ratna Kapur’s essay on the firestorm (pun intended) and controversy and violent demonstrations aimed at Deepa Mehta’s Fire, “The Cultural Politics of Fire” — as well as several other essays on Indian films, especially the South Asian, and especially considered from a cultural studies, sexual, & censorship point of view. I here bring this altogether to argue that lesbianism it seems is one of the ‘red flags’ for those who are for male hegemony; just before bluestockings (also a target for rabid cruel attacks). Both kinds of women appear to do without men, not seek families as the center of their existence, find much more personally fulfilling substitutes.

The revealing thing about Bend It Like Beckham, which (like Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice and Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala blends American or a Hollywood style film with Indian motifs) is that no one spoke of the subtextual and sometimes over central themes about homosexuality in the film. Here in the US we are supposed to have an open society: there were no riots; indeed the film garnered popular audiences, but mum was the word about this aspect of what was alluring.

The young Bengali man that the Bengali heroine, Jess (Parminder Nagra)’s parents want her to marry, and who does love her (as a brother or friend), Tony (Ameet Chana) is an unacknowledged homosexual. Jules (a boy’s name for Juliette as played by Keira Knightley) is mistaken for a boy when Jess kisses her. Jess is short for Jessminder, and Jess can be a boy’s name in the US.
Tony does tell Jess he’s gay but he swears her to tell no one else, especially the parents. At the end of the film Jess comes out for truthfulness in front of their Indian parents: when Tony attempts to help her take up an offered athletic scholarship in the US by claiming he and she are engaged and will marry when she returns from the US, she says “no.” That’s not so. She really wants the freedom to travel and live away and there is no guarantee she will be back to marry and live in the Bengali way. But neither she or Tony tells the parents, nor indeed anyone else.

I liked Bend It Like Beckham far more than I thought I would. I had not liked Bride and Prejudice very much: I saw its skillful art, beautiful dancing, and the wonderfully satiric proto-feminist and other songs. But it was silly and had other characteristics like Bend it. Both grated on and off and it took a lot of patience for me not to shut it off. Chadha’s sense of humor is (to me) awful; she invites us to laugh at what should make us pity someone or grow angry at outrageous accepted bullying; she finds obtuseness and social cruelties funny. One might say she is tolerant, but there is a line I’d draw when I feel the vulnerable suffering and Chadha dismisses intangible hurts. They do count, and at any rate I’m not amused. Like Bride and Prejudice, Bend It is very noisy; Jim agreed and said he could hear the decibel level in the front room.

She is all for “winners” (words like “whining” are used for justified protests or unhappiness, though she is too canny to use “losers” for those not so socially and in other ways most admire successful). Chadna’s films are incessantly upbeat in the worst way: all of us can have it all it seems. At least the male coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) at the end though of course offered the high big place coaching men for soccer, decides to stay where he is with women: he wants to be a big fish in a littler pond and on the “cutting edge” of sexual politics (lest we think he wouldn’t go for the biggest prize in the room).

Worst of all, in Bend It, the husbands and fathers are all wise, and we are to laugh at mothers who are stupid stick-in-the-muds, sarcastic, bully their husbands (oh yeah — this from women who have no income too) and it’s Dad who saves the day for both our girls. Juliet Stevenson was (I hope) paid a lot for being a dope mother (Jules’s) who wants to put falsies on her daughter, but deprived wears them herself. It’s she who goes bananas when she thinks Jules kissed Jess; then told it was a mistake, she reverts to her (hypocritical though she does not know it so we are supposed to forgive this) toleration of lesbians as long as it’s not her daughter.

Juliet Stevenson as Jules’s thick absurd mom

Frank Harpet as Dad who saves the day.

The main problem with the movie for me is that Chadha panders (we get the ectastically expensive happy wedding) even as she urges women (it seems) to accept their totally unfeminist sisters: all Jess’s sister (played by Archie Panjabi who was Ghita in The Constant Gardener lives for is marriage, pregnancy; another female relative is a nasty cock-teaser who thinks this is the way to live too, and we see her making-out busted up by her parents who try to destroy the camera that took pictures. We are to accept this as part of the picture — not that it’s not or we should not, and it did somewhat deflate the absurd wedding. Jules and Jess are presented as not all that unusual for wanting to break tabooes and seek something beyond cosmetics, getting men and babies. They want to play football, to be applauded and admired, to complete and if they are both attracted to Joe, marriage is not the end of their being, and they are bored bored bored with the role of mother, daughter &cc, want to go to university and travel.

Two Sisters: Chadha says the film is her most autobiographical

At the same time, Bend It is, though, also seriously about the pains of assimiliation, some of the character portraits are very well done, and it has its adult moving moments. I was struck though by how it also touched precisely on the issues that Fire dramatized. Jesse is attached to her family and she cannot get herself to hurt the individuals who feel tender affection for and loyalty to her, so she must participate in their cultural rituals. To walk away from their lifestyle would leave her without a lifestyle to belong to, for Joe himself is someone cut off from his father. UK families are no haven.

Jess’s Dad a Sikh man is a moving character: he is against his daughter playing football because when he was young and came to England, he was excluded from cricket on the grounds of his race. He mourns his having given up, and at the of the film we see Joe (making himself acceptable as a coming son-in-law) teaching this man to play cricket well.

In the essays on censorship the authors discussed the Hindu right, its parties, political arms, and the curious forms of censorship that stick, for example, the forbidden kiss. It stands for privacy, what goes on in the house. It’s okay for a woman to dance in sexy clothes and expose much of her private parts, but not
okay to kiss on the mouth anyone, nor men. I noted the Bend It played with non-kisses and it was not till the last moment that Jess and Joe kissed and then the camera insisted we watch it carefully close up.

Jess and Joe, a loving interracial couple (the actor projects a curious louchness and wildness, and is effeminate in his brooding features; he was brilliant a disturbed near homocidal maniac from the experiences of civil war in Ang Lee’s Ride with the Devil)

So Chadha does participate marginally in precisely what Mehta is doing. I have not yet seen Fire, only Water (see previous blog). I thanked Fran for her corrective comments on some of the reviews. It is not true that the women’s husbands are paragons; that does change the meaning of the film. Kapur perhaps wanted it to be more free-choice lesbianism. Instead the women turn to one another in reaction to the miseries of heterosexual marriage.

On WWTTA we talked about how such films and lesbianism and women’s friendship related to Jane Austen’s Emma. Emma has been interpreted from a lesbian standpoint (by Juhasz who is a lesbian herself); and Ruth Perry demonstrates how women’s friendship can’t last in the structures of society, not easily. Miss Taylor’s first loyalty must be to Mr Weston; her time is his; Emma turns to Harriet, but when Harriet emerges as a rival, and then marries a farmer, Mr Martin, she begins to keep her distance. Your first loyalty is to family and that means the males in charge too. In Bend It Chadha downplayed rivalry except for sexual jealousy between Jess and Jules over Joe, but that almost lost them the game.

Recent novels by more alert women (thinking) de-emphasize this rivalry I think; in Bell Jar (for example), Plath may show her mid-century placement and be using stereotypes and she herself (I understand) could be awful about and to other women (but her biographies are just as agenda-ridden by the authors as Dickinson). The psychologists say how important supportive friendships are for women, so this persistent divide-and-conquer is all the more poignant and hurtful for women. At the end Austen has Emma as the complacent winner, and I’m with a number of readers who find that ending grating (what did she do to earn anything) and while I wish it were ironic, I don’t feel it is. Austen herself dismisses what Perry is right to say is in the text (how women need women friends, how these relationships are broken up by patriarchial and class structures) and instead ends on one of Mrs Elton’s supposedly funny sneers at Emma, jealous of her as ever, and hoping Emma’s marriage will fail. Austen is also ambivalent about spinster old maids, for older unmarried women can be rendered as dignified women with a meaningful life too.

In my comments I add some on another recent American “women’s film”: a film dealing centrally with women’s issues and containing a positive or sympathetic portrait of women apart from men.

Ellen.

The naive idealistic hopeful Muslim girl about to marry her Hindi beloved (from Bombay)

Bhuvan’s heroic stand as batter (from Lagaan)

Dear Friends,

The last week or so I’ve returned to working on my book on Austen movies. One of the Sense and Sensibility movies is a Tamil free adaptation, Rajiv Menon’s I Have Found It (2000), and, as I have done with the three I’ve written up thus far (1971 BBC, writer Denis Constanduros; 1981 BBC, writer Alexander Baron; and 1995 Miramax, writer Emma Thompson , all called Sense and Sensibility), I’ve been watching and/or studying and taking notes on, reading about, related movies.

In this case it has meant first reading about Indian movies: there’s more about Bollywood (Bombay movies) than Tamil (South Asian), but the two kinds are subspecies of Indian movies. I’ve two books and a group of essays. And then re-watching or watching for the first time those Indian films I can rent or buy which have English subtitles. Now most of these are movies which have been hits in the US or UK or Europe — or why gain subtitles? Indeed those I’ve watched thus far have been uniformly superb: two years ago I made it my business to see Deepa Mehta’s Water (2005), and this past fall, one made partly for the US market, Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala, 1991 (and so not an Indian film [see commnt to blog], but an American one with Indian motifs, rather like Nair’s Namesake (2006) which I’m going to show my classes in a week or so); Sastosh Sivan’s Before the Rains (2007); a “classic” by Satyajit Ray, Charulata (1964, Englished as The Lonely Wife, based on a 19th century Indian novel); and now one by the director Mani Ratnam (with Menon as cinematographer), Bombay (1995), and one Menon said he admired tremendously, Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan (2001).

I’d say that in comparison to Lagaan and Bombay, the two Austen movies I’m going to write about, Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice and Menon’s I have Found It are weak (especially the essentially silly B&P) or simply an ordinary if in some ways compelling human drama and love story, with the important subtext of strong women, drawn from Austen’s S&S (IHFI). B&P may also be said to be a remarkable sustained blend of superbly done satiric and joyful song and dance (so I will try to see her Bend It Like Beckham [2002] this coming weekend too).

So that’s the context, how I’ve come to sit here at times enthralled, quivering, and occasionally bored, mostly at moments in <em>Guru (2007), also a Ratnam-Menon product: it has some tedious filler dance-and-song and doesn’t become riveting until we realize the hero’s in-laws are plotting to destroy his financial empire and him. Indian movies are all so long that there is a comparison between them and a long novel. You must sit and watch, sometimes over the course of a day and a half before you’ve done (as I have other things to do so am interrupted).

For tonight I want to write about Lagaan and Bombay mostly, with some mention of Guru. In the case of Lagaan (which means “Tax”), I became so involved in the cricket game between the dastardly cruel English and the exploited, impoverished, brave and noble Indian villagers, that I was in an intense fever of anxiety lest the Indians lose that game of cricket, so much was depending on it. I literally ran home to finish the movie and couldn’t bear watching while the other side (the dastardly English) scored points. I cannot remember ever caring whether one team won a game over another, and here I was gripped, gripped, my emotions at full pitch.

The Indian team between training sessions

The way it was done was to make a lot I could care about ride on the game. Here’s the situation:

It hasn’t rained for two years in Champaner, a village in sweltering central India, but Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne, who is a Billy Zane doppelgänger), the commander of the local British regiment, isn’t about to give the parched villagers a break. He makes a bet with Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), the most spirited of the villagers (and of course, the handsomest), but only because he believes it’s a sure thing: If the villagers can beat the British regiment in a cricket match, he’ll cancel the land tax for two years; if the British win, the villagers will have to pay three times the normal, unreasonable amount.

Captain Russell feels confident because the villagers have absolutely no idea of how cricket is played. But Bhuvan believes that it is close enough to a game called “gilli-danda” they all played as children, and with the clandestine assistance of the captain’s sister, Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley), who’s appalled by her brother’s cruelty, Bhuvan begins putting together a team (by Dave Kehr; see the rest of this review).

Russell is a cruel sneering man. We see him kick, beat, and humiliate the villagers; he lives in the lap of luxury, and has decided to do this to tillitate himself with these people’s misery. Slowly each of the villager’s personalities emerges, and our hero Bhuvan is shown to be great-souled: he takes an untouchable, a Sikh, an old half-crazy despised man onto his team, because he needs them and they are willing. A curious fillip to the European viewer is Russell’s sister not only teaches the men how to play the game, she comes to love Bhuvan.

Rachel Shelley as Elizabeth (so the white woman watching could have someone to identify with too)

Everything is done to up the ante and create excitement and despair. Russell pays one of the villagers on the team to be a spy and to try to throw the game. The umpires tend to side with the English. There is wry humor in the obtuse words and gestures of the English watching the game; we find them hilarious all the while feeling they act so superciliously and sure of themselves because they are so powerful. The songs and dances are rousing and stir the heart with desire for them to win.

It is a kind of fantasy. I suppose the Indians of old really would have liked to be able to beat the British out by a single duel of this sort, and what better than this upper-class game.

Our team (David) beating the empire (Goliath)

Gowariker, writer, director had a brilliant idea and executed it with extraordinary passion and panache. Jim tells me the hero, Aamir Khan, went on to star in a film about the 1857 Mutiny, The Rising.

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Shekar seeking his children frantically

Bombay had me quivering with horror and distress. It started very slowly as I watched a Hindu young man fall in love from afar by merely seeing the face of a Muslim young girl through her black burka. After much effort, he manages to reach her, and she falls in love with him at first sight too. Both sets of parents are bitterly against any match: in an article on the Austen movies, Linda Troost and Sayre Greenberg argued that the Indian adaptations uniformly make family and friends kind and a haven in the Austen films because the culture (it was implied) would not criticize family. Well, maybe the two Austen films show this, but in this film and Guru, family members are profoundly cruel, adversarial (the hero’s father resents paying for his son’s education), vengeful (the heroine’s father plans to marry her off in ten days, a plan which precipitates her courageous flight to Bombay and immediate marriage).

The open-faced Muslim bride (Manisha Koirala)

The somewhat older experienced Hindu groom (Arvind Swamy)

What is so riveting, compelling, horrifying is after a few years of living together peacefully in Bombay (after initially being rejected by their neighbors for their intermarriage), Bombay erupts in bloody riots where Muslims and Hindus proceed to beat, stone, hack, and in whatever horrific way possible (they set one another on fire) murder the person of the other religion, destroy each another’s property (by fire mostly), bomb buses, cars, whatever is in their way.

What stays in my mind is the frantic cruelty of the way the crowds of people seek to destroy individuals and houses: they pour gasoline over people’s heads, over cars, over houses, and then set them on fire. A kind of wild half-crazed exhilaration and maddened despair might be said to be at the core of this, but poverty is not enough to account for such horrors. I know in Europe people accused of heresy were burnt at the stake. What is it when religion gets involved? People who kill themselves as an example to others during ethnic and social and other wars also set themselves on fire. How are we to understand this terrifying impulse?

Here is this story told in detail from another blog:

It’s a beautifully photographed (by Rajiv Menon) story of personal and urban conflict when Hindu and Muslim encounter each other. On the small scale, Arvind Swamy (the most un-herolike hero I’ve ever seen) plays Shekar, the journalist son of a conservative Hindu father, who falls in love at first sighting of Shaila Bano, a Muslim girl who lives in the same TamilNad town, and has an equally staunch father. Manisha is gorgeous in this movie and the lengths her suitor goes to are perfectly understandable.

Facing parental opposition, the two flee to Bombay so they can marry and live in peace. Things go fine for a few years, though there are hints of what’s to come when Shaila is buying vegetables one day and a group of saffron-robed men pass by, chanting slogans. Shekar works as a journalist while Shaila tends to their twin sons, then Ayodya happens, and the city is torn apart by two spurts of rioting between Hindus and Muslims, in December and then January.

During the first riot, the boys are terrorized by a group of men who douse them in gasoline and keep asking “Are you Hindu or Muslim? Answer!” while fumbling to light a match. The sons narrowly escape, but the effects are profound. In a brief and wrenching scene, one twin, Kamal, riding on his grandfather’s shoulders as they head home from a temple visit, reacts instinctively when seeing another small mob, reaching down with a small hand to wipe the ash off the older man’s forehead while doing the same to his own. In the January riots, as the family flees a burning home, the boys are separated from their parents and then from each other. One is taken in by a hijra, the other by a Muslim woman (see rest of blog for more on the historical reality of the mid-1990s)

So our hero and heroine get caught up in these crazed city-wide conflagrations twice, and in both instances are separated from their children.

The terrified children

The second time destroys their fathers and the heroine’s mother who have at long last come to visit and been reconciled to some extent after the first visit. They are burnt to death. We see them frantically running everywhere to find their children, believing them dead, and the final moment when they do (improbably I admit) find the children after the children have re-discovered one another is such an intense relief I really shivered.

Of course the point of this film is to make a strong case against religious prejudice and its dire destructiveness. The film does neglect to show the conflict is at its core economic: over jobs and power. It simply blames “politicians” for stirring up hatred without explaining why this is possible so swiftly. The intense poverty of so many people.

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Guru is a noteworthy film too, and by its end I was very involved. It tells the story of a lower or middle class young man who fights, claws, and struggles his way up from a poverty-striken life in a village to the luxurious life of a wealthy manufacturing businessman who runs a huge corporation. To move from his lowly place to such a high one, he must break laws, cut corners, do deals; this film might be said to justify CEOs, but since it’s set in India, the context is different, and he is seen in the film as a savior, as doing his best against out-moded laws and customs which keep the wealth and power in the hands of a few.

Along the way he marries a beautiful village girl, Sujatha (played by the ubiquitous Aishwarya Rai who also has twins — apparently a desideratum — two for the price of one?) and becomes involved with her family, and there’s the rub. He rouses the intense jealousy and hatred of his brother-in-law, Shyam (Madhavan) whose ego he bruises, and this brother-in-law and his wife’s grandfather set out to expose and ruin him — and they almost do. A side story is of his wife’s crippled sister who the brother-in-law has married almost out of spite, but who he loves intensely and gives a few years of happiness before she dies of multiple sclerosis. The actress who plays this role, Meenu (Vidya Balan) delivers a touching performance. I surmize we are to feel this villain hastened her death with his love-making.

Abhishek Bachcan as Guru

The performance of Abhishek Bachchan as Guru (full name Gurukant K. Desai) makes this film, and some of the minor characters he meets in business, e.g., the man who comes with him from Turkey and tries to commit suicide when the brother-in-law pumps information out of him. Many moving moments which are made probable come out of everyday life in a fiercely competitive locally-controlled (by bosses, by people in power) economy.

There’s a good blog on this movie (with a summary) and its music and cast too.

Rai in one of her dance routines

Guru may feel more relevant to our world today — the way Bombay is, than Lagaan, although we may take the side of Michael Moore in Capitalism: A Love Story, here greed is seen as part of a healthy dream to improve the lives of all. Guru does not drain everyone else, but wants to take them with him.

In this sort of idealism we do see the weakness of this film in comparison to the other two; similarly the two Austen films have positions and stories that won’t stand close scrutiny by a realist. And yet what they do add are strong women’s roles, women transgressing to some extent (B&P) and going out on their own for jobs. In most of the above films women are wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and their big jobs are to have and care for children, cook, and wait for the man to return and be loyal to him. Period.

No one who has seen the above three films (or the others I’ve cited) can ever say that the vast world of cinema created and enjoyed by Indian culture is in any way inferior to that of the European countries (say French), middle eastern (say Turkey or the ex-communist ones) or English speaking ones (Hollywood, the UK). Some parts of their audience may be naive but so are parts of the audiences al over the world, and these movie-makers are not, and their “movie grammar” (to refer to all their techniques) when it gets going can be more powerful than the European-Hollywood. They know how to root their stories in primal emotions and build on these.

They also have a different set or differently-nuanced archetypes for men and women at the heart of the stories. I surmize Hollywood has not been able to make in-roads into Indian theatres because of a fundamental difference in the stereotypical males we find in the West, say the tough, hard, carapace, loner American, Robert de Niro, and the tough (always there for men), but loving, tender, sensual interactive male, Gerard Depardieu. I have to think more about the women in western movies, but at first blush I have not seen anything like femme fatales or independent “spunky” women in these films. I’ve read of prostitute-types, but this is sheerly in the area of sex where the Indian film may differ. Not that that’s not important

Enough for now,

Ellen

கொல்லப்புடி மாருதி ராவ் தனக்கு பிடித்த தெலுங்கு படங்களை பற்றி இங்கே சொல்கிறார். கொல்லப்புடி தெலுங்கு நடிகர், எழுத்தாளர். சாஹித்ய அகாடெமி விருது எல்லாம் வாங்கி இருக்கிறார். நம்மூர் டெல்லி கணேஷ் மாதிரி stature உள்ள தெலுங்கு நடிகர்.

அவரது லிஸ்டும் என் குறிப்புகளும்:

இவற்றுள் யோகி வேமனா, தேவதாஸ், மல்லேஸ்வரி, விப்ரநாராயணா, மாயாபஜார், லைலா மஜ்னு, சவுகாரு, சங்கராபரணம் போன்றவற்றை க்ளாசிக்குகள் என்று சொல்லலாம். நான் பார்த்தவற்றில் மல்லேஸ்வரி, மாயாபஜார், சங்கராபரணம், ஷிவா ஆகியவற்றை சிபாரிசு செய்வேன். நான் சிபாரிசு செய்யும் மற்ற படங்கள்: குண்டம்மா கதா, மிஸ்ஸம்மா, கீதாஞ்சலி. மாயாபஜார், குண்டம்மா கதா, மிஸ்ஸம்மா ஆகியவற்றை 20 வருஷங்களுக்கு முன் செகந்தராபாதில் தியேட்டர்களில் பார்ப்பது நல்ல அனுபவம் – தியேட்டர் பாதி நிறைந்திருக்கும், பார்ப்பவர்கள் மிகவும் என்ஜாய் செய்து பார்ப்பார்கள். (அதே போல் பழைய ஹிந்தி படங்களை ஹைதராபாத் தியேட்டர்களில் பார்ப்பது நல்ல அனுபவம். பார்ப்பவர்கள் உண்மையில் என்ஜாய் செய்வார்கள். சி.ஐ.டி. படத்தில் வஹீதா ரெஹ்மான் கஹி பே நிகாஹென் கஹி பே நிஷானா என்று பாடிக் கொண்டு வரும்போது தியேட்டர் கூட சேர்ந்து ஆடியது.)

மீண்டும் லிஸ்டுக்காக பாஸ்டன் பாலாவுக்கு நன்றி! இந்த படங்கள் பாடப் புத்தகங்களில் பேசப்படுகின்றனவாம். ட்விட்டர் ஸ்டைல் குறிப்புகளுடன் லிஸ்ட் கீழே.

ரோஜா – சின்ன சின்ன ஆசை என்று பாடிக்கொண்டு மதுபாலா வரும்போது தியேட்டரில் விசில் பறந்தது நினைவிருக்கிறது. ஏ.ஆர். ரஹ்மானின் முதல் படம். மதுபாலா கலக்கிவிட்டார். ஆனால் படம், அதுவும் காஷ்மீர் பகுதி சுமார்தான்.

ஹகீகத் (ஹிந்தி, 1964)- பால்ராஜ் ஸாஹ்னி நடித்தது. நல்ல படம் என்று கேள்வி. பார்த்ததில்லை.

ஆக்ரோஷ் (ஹிந்தி, 1980) – கோவிந்த் நிஹ்லானி படம் என்று நினைவு. இதெல்லாம் எங்கே கிடைக்கிறது?

சிம்மாசன் (மராத்தி) – கேள்விப்பட்டிருக்கிறேன், பார்த்ததில்லை.

கரம் ஹவா (ஹிந்தி, 1973) – மிக நல்ல படம். பால்ராஜ் ஸாஹ்னி, ஃபரூக் ஷேய்க், ஏ.கே. ஹங்கல் நடித்தது. எம்.எஸ். சத்யு இயக்கம்.

ஜஞ்ஜீர் (ஹிந்தி, 1973) – அமிதாபுக்கு angry young man இமேஜ் கொடுத்த முதல் படம். அன்று இருந்த சுவாரசியம் இன்று இல்லை, ஆனால் பார்க்கலாம்.

ஹஜாரோன் க்வாயிஷேன் ஐஸி – கேள்விப்பட்டதில்லை.

பதேர் பாஞ்சாலி – மிக நல்ல படம். சத்யஜித் ரே எடுத்த முதல் படம். ஆனால் இதை விட எனக்கு இதன் இரண்டாம் பாகமான அபராஜிதோ மிக பிடிக்கும். மூன்றாவது பாகத்தின்(அபூர் சன்சார்) முதல் பகுதி – ஷர்மிளா தாகூர் கலக்கும் பகுதி – மிக பிடிக்கும்.

First look of ‘Kites‘ unveiled at Cannes Film Festival and Hrithik Roshan’s Kites fly very high at the 62nd Cannes Film festival. The Cast and crew unveiled a teaser trailer and some key art posters of Kites. (www.kites-thefilm.com)

Market hype around Kites is immense. Kites is the most awaiting movie in bollywood. The movie is all set for a DIWALI release .The title starting with “K” may be Producer’s fancy.  However, in the film Hrithik is playing a man named J.

” Kites” is an ambitious international film produced by Rakesh Roshan’s Film Kraft and promoted by the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group promoted Big Pictures. It is indeed a very big budget movie.

‘Kites’ is a tale of romance between an Indian guy and a Mexican beauty.

With the kites in the title meaning the theme of meeting of two lovers who are then set adrift by circumstances much like kites. Kites has also action sequences designed to showcase Hrithik Roshan’s on screen charisma

Starring Hrithik Roshan and the Mexican model turned actress Barbara  Mori Ochoa in lead roles. Tthe movie is directed by Anurag Basu and produced by Rakesh Roshan.  Other stars include Kangana Ranaut, Nick Brown and Kabir Bedi. Music by Rajesh Roshan.

The film has some breath-taking dances from Hrithik, Barbara and Kangana.

The choreography in these songs is by Flexy Stu a renowned American Choreographer.

For one song shot in Mumbai, Farah khan did the choreography.

The film has Hrithik playing a man named J, who once used to be a clever, street smart, charming guy, but is now a wanted man. To add to his woes he’s left to die in the scorching heat of the Mexican desert. Only one desire keeps him alive, to find the woman he loves. In this love story where the lovers don’t even speak each other’s languages. While she talks in Spanish, he speaks in Hindi with a smattering of English

This film sheds most of usual bollywood stuff like music, stunts etc and expect much bigger than that of dry me too stuff this time. However, the film is produced to be meant for global platform in style and delivery.

Wait for sometime to watch the movie with great thrill.

Mention the name Hollywood, and you immediately associate this city with the American film industry.

There is no physical place by this name, but, over time, Mumbai (or Bombay is it used to be called) which is the center for Hindi film production (the largest film producer in India and one of the largest in the world), became known as Bollywood.

Fair enough.

But, with films being made in other locations and locations, this portmanteau of the words Hollywood and that of a film producing city began to get extended, and I was amused to discover several other names.

Kodambakkam in Chennai (Madras) is home to the Tamil film industry, and goes by the name Kollywood.

Tollywood refers to both the Bengali film industry based in Tollygunge in Kolkatta (Calcutta) as well as to Hyderabad, the centre for Telugu films.

Gollywood refers to the Gujarati film world.

The cinema of Bangladesh, which is based in Dhaka, is sometimes referred to as Dhallywood.

While Lollywood refers to the Pakistani film industry based in the city of Lahore. Pollywood refers to its counterpart in Peshawar, the provincial capital of the North-West Frontier Province.

Interesting thought – if films start getting made in other centres, will the same concept get adopted? Will Jaipur become Jollywood, Siliguri become Sillywood, and Mavelikara become Mollywood?

What’s wrong with maintaining one’s own identity? Is this silly, and totally unnecessary appendage, required?