The beginning sequence in Anubhav surprised me pleasantly. It is a party celebrating a couple’s sixth wedding anniversary. The camerawork is more evocative of European cinema helping conjure up a candid and intimate look into the machinations of this society event. The overlapping of voices and a quick glance at each forgettable face of a guest makes you feel a part of this party. I instantly recalled all the formal parties I had been to in my life (well, most of them) and feeling a similar emotion of remoteness and false involvement that this sequence evokes.
The party is not staged for the camera’s benefit. When you consider most Hindi films, everything in a crowded scene is directed or choreographed in a way to hint at drama or passion. This might be done in the form of a song or a dramatic confrontation. These kind of scenes are entertaining in their own right but the party scene in Anubhav also works because it shows the lack of dominance that these people have. There is no spotlight on a single person and it is a little child who draws all the oohs and aahs.
Once you realise that the director is Basu Bhattacharya (Teesri Kasam), you can understand why the opening is so unusual. The married couple are Meeta (Tanuja) and Amar (Sanjeev Kumar). Meeta likens her home to a hotel as it is swarming with unnecessary servants. Normally a person who goes through the motions of her role as an obedient wife, Meeta decides to take matters into her own hands. She sacks nearly all the servants without even consulting Amar.
When Amar complains, her response is: “Jab woh sab hote hai aur main nahin, kya tum meri kami mehsoos karte ho?” Here, a desire to be needed and loved has been awakened. Anubhav is a rather feminist film in some ways. Meeta asserts herself, not by shouting or by force, she takes the initiative to get rid of whatever is making her unhappy. She has a more difficult time later with the re-entry of old flame, Shashi (Dinesh Thakur) into her life. When Amar finds out who he truly is and feels betrayed, Meeta asserts herself once more and explains to him her side of things.
But where Anubhav really scores for me is in its celebration of life. The constant ringing of the phone, the ding-dong of the clock, the whirring fan… These are all emblems of the passage of time and a warning of how life can just pass you by. There is a lovely moment when a carefree Meeta hums in the shower (to Geeta Dutt’s sublime voice): “Mera dil jo mera hota, Palkon pe pakar leti, Hoton se utaa leti, Haathon main khuda hota.” We all have moments when we fall asleep to the routines of life but this song is about waking up and grabbing your present with both hands. Meeta takes ownership of what her heart is telling her.
And Tanuja is such a natural screen presence here. Every time she speaks and I hear her quiet honeyed voice, I find it soothing. Her warm demeanour counteracts against the desolation of the apartment that threatens to stifle her. Of course, Sanjeev Kumar is also at his natural and charming best. Both show a high comfort level with each other and make for a sweet onscreen pairing. Anubhav has its flaws and odd moments but the feeling of joy that it generates is precious to me. Go out and wake up to life. Reach out for what is yours. Go grab the sun. As Geeta Dutt herself says: Suraj ko pakar leti, sandal ki tarah malti…
Showing posts with label Classic Film Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Classic Film Review. Show all posts
Friday, 21 September 2007
Sunday, 4 March 2007
Claude Chabrol's Juste Avant La Nuit
Image from Fremantle Home EntertainmentThe last Claude Chabrol work that I viewed was Nada, an uninteresting and confusing film about terrorism. In order to get over that, I found relief in visiting a far superior Chabrol work, Juste Avant La Nuit (Just Before Nightfall). With themes of lust, deceit, murder and redemption, Juste Avant… is more a psychological drama rather than a thriller.
Charles’ (Michel Bouquet) kinky affair with his best friend and neighbour’s wife, Laura, ends violently with him strangling her. The early post-murder sequence of Charles attempting to act normal in front of Laura’s husband, François (François Périer), is very misleading. You are lulled into a false sense of security that the rest of the film will revolve around Charles trying desperately not to be caught. But the plot, based on the short story The Thin Line, follows a different line of thought.
The characters are zipped up and buttoned up. Emotion is a potential threat and there is a secret battle to stop it rippling to the surface. Charles drags his hand along the hedge as he walks up the street. This is a rare spontaneous action crying out for help. Another striking scene is where he mimes his confession on the way to Laura’s funeral. He speaks but no sound comes out. There are emotions and feelings that dare not be expressed.
Hélène (Stéphane Audran as Charles’ wife) is more successful in controlling her feelings. Her reaction to her husband’s confession – sex, murder, warts and all – is as cool as a cucumber. She calmly chooses to forgive him and carries on with the façade of that thing called life. The constantly cold weather represents their state of being – beating hearts packed in frozen ice.
The detached performances by Michel Bouquet, Stéphane Audran and François Périer convey this rather chillingly. Bouquet is especially outstanding as the man in danger of listening to his conscience amid the awkward rehearsals of everyday life. A young woman who recognises him from afar as Laura’s lover stares at him and refuses to let her glance drop. Let’s admit it, we would do the same thing. You have to study this man in the hope of seeing a glimmer of truth behind that stony act.
The structure of the sets (particularly in Charles’ house) evokes an acute sense of being trapped and hidden. Curtains are drawn to conceal the cracks in relationships. They are opened when Hélène wishes to cast an eye on what is happening in the next room and beyond. In a macabre and mischievous way, the gate to François’ house looks exactly like prison bars.
There are some arresting shots of the married couple walking along the beach. It’s meant to be a getaway, a ‘break’, but it can hardly be what you call a holiday. The cold hard wind is still trailing them. The only difference is that they have escaped from the white walls of their houses just to glare at the black silhouettes of their estranged figures. The photography sums up the state of their souls by capturing them in complete black (in one shot with minimal light) as they stroll up the rocky beach.
Another interesting sequence that plays with the idea of black and white is when Charles confesses to François. This crucial night scene is directed with very little light and we can barely see the actors’ faces. But it soon dawns upon us that seeing their expressions is really not that important. François’ reaction is similar to Hélène’s, he decides to opt for forgiveness and pretend that the whole thing had never happened.
The twist comes from Charles feeling uneasy with all this peace-loving forgiveness and wanting to be punished for his sins. He is exposed to the apathy of a society numb to the feeling of moral outrage or shock. As Charles contemplates his predicament, the opening becomes that much clearer. Laura whispering, “If you knew what I’ve done, if you only knew…”, as she begs to be strangled. This is one consequence of the bourgeois society that wants to pretend that nothing really hurts.
What Juste Avant La Nuit is trying to say is that we do need judgment, we do need redemption. Or else, our sense of self-worth is in danger of crippling away.
Charles’ (Michel Bouquet) kinky affair with his best friend and neighbour’s wife, Laura, ends violently with him strangling her. The early post-murder sequence of Charles attempting to act normal in front of Laura’s husband, François (François Périer), is very misleading. You are lulled into a false sense of security that the rest of the film will revolve around Charles trying desperately not to be caught. But the plot, based on the short story The Thin Line, follows a different line of thought.
The characters are zipped up and buttoned up. Emotion is a potential threat and there is a secret battle to stop it rippling to the surface. Charles drags his hand along the hedge as he walks up the street. This is a rare spontaneous action crying out for help. Another striking scene is where he mimes his confession on the way to Laura’s funeral. He speaks but no sound comes out. There are emotions and feelings that dare not be expressed.
Hélène (Stéphane Audran as Charles’ wife) is more successful in controlling her feelings. Her reaction to her husband’s confession – sex, murder, warts and all – is as cool as a cucumber. She calmly chooses to forgive him and carries on with the façade of that thing called life. The constantly cold weather represents their state of being – beating hearts packed in frozen ice.
The detached performances by Michel Bouquet, Stéphane Audran and François Périer convey this rather chillingly. Bouquet is especially outstanding as the man in danger of listening to his conscience amid the awkward rehearsals of everyday life. A young woman who recognises him from afar as Laura’s lover stares at him and refuses to let her glance drop. Let’s admit it, we would do the same thing. You have to study this man in the hope of seeing a glimmer of truth behind that stony act.
The structure of the sets (particularly in Charles’ house) evokes an acute sense of being trapped and hidden. Curtains are drawn to conceal the cracks in relationships. They are opened when Hélène wishes to cast an eye on what is happening in the next room and beyond. In a macabre and mischievous way, the gate to François’ house looks exactly like prison bars.
There are some arresting shots of the married couple walking along the beach. It’s meant to be a getaway, a ‘break’, but it can hardly be what you call a holiday. The cold hard wind is still trailing them. The only difference is that they have escaped from the white walls of their houses just to glare at the black silhouettes of their estranged figures. The photography sums up the state of their souls by capturing them in complete black (in one shot with minimal light) as they stroll up the rocky beach.
Another interesting sequence that plays with the idea of black and white is when Charles confesses to François. This crucial night scene is directed with very little light and we can barely see the actors’ faces. But it soon dawns upon us that seeing their expressions is really not that important. François’ reaction is similar to Hélène’s, he decides to opt for forgiveness and pretend that the whole thing had never happened.
The twist comes from Charles feeling uneasy with all this peace-loving forgiveness and wanting to be punished for his sins. He is exposed to the apathy of a society numb to the feeling of moral outrage or shock. As Charles contemplates his predicament, the opening becomes that much clearer. Laura whispering, “If you knew what I’ve done, if you only knew…”, as she begs to be strangled. This is one consequence of the bourgeois society that wants to pretend that nothing really hurts.
What Juste Avant La Nuit is trying to say is that we do need judgment, we do need redemption. Or else, our sense of self-worth is in danger of crippling away.
Saturday, 24 February 2007
Revisiting Silsila...
‘Love triangles’ have always been a popular choice as it has the potential of bringing a big starcast together as well as being dramatic fodder for weepy romantic films. The genre is recognised by themes of duty, friendship and sacrifice. A character ends up with a past and a present purely due to circumstances out of their control. The genre has rarely ever dealt with intended adultery, as one might expect in some love triangles, but focuses on fate, tradition and destiny.
Yash Chopra takes the basic ingredients of a love triangle and adds an extra-marital relationship to give it that extra punch. In Silsila, fate still plays its cruel tricks. Shobha (Jaya Bachchan) is due to marry the pilot Shekhar (Shashi Kapoor) but he dies in a plane crash. Out of pity for Shobha’s unwedded pregnancy, Shekhar’s brother, Amit (Amitabh Bachchan) marries her and abandons his true love, Chandni (Rekha).
Silsila has very fine performances by the entire cast though Rekha is often distant and aloof. Her confrontation scene with Jaya is disappointing because her performance is flat. Her most effective scene is when she receives the letter with bad news from Amit. Jaya is more into her character (which has shades of her real life) and Sanjeev Kumar’s character is refreshing because he is not quick to be judgmental about his wife’s infidelity. There are memorable scenes such as the dinner party where all the four main characters meet and Amit and Chandni’s infidelity becomes glaringly obvious; not to mention the Holi celebration where the hard-to-remove red colours on Chandni’s clothes come to define the danger that she represents.
These scenes are effective because they represent a threat to the world of duty and respect that the narrative is trying to uphold. When Amit first meets his sister-in-law-to-be (but then turns out not-to-be) Shobha, he puts in the effort to make her laugh and smile. She makes note of their jovial conversation to which he replies, “Main apna duty nibhaa raha tha” (I was just fulfilling my duty). Duty, as well as the concepts of farz and karz, are established early on and run throughout the film as motifs.
Amit’s sense of duty is challenged when Shobha loses Shekhar’s baby soon after their marriage. With the death of the unborn baby, the reason for Amit’s dutiful act has now gone. “Hum azaad hain” (We are free), he asserts in a play’s monologue as his character denounces the false life of hypocrisy and entrapment (a performance to which he invites his mistress, Chandni). It is ironic that Amit does not follow the advice of his alter ego.
In the last act, Chopra chooses to criticise Amit’s very decision to take it upon himself to look after Shobha. One of his friends tells him that no-one had asked him to marry her, he chose to make the sacrifice. He chose to take the route of being god-like and should be consistent with his choice instead of pandering to earthly desires at the last minute. It is a scathing attack on him (and possibly all male martyrs in such melodramas) except that Chopra chooses not to develop it and more readily prefers the option of reaffirming Amit’s godlike status in the bizarre sequence of saving Dr Anand (Sanjeev Kumar) from an airplane crash.
The film wants to have its cake and eat it. It wants to criticise the notion of sacrifice and duty that are dime a dozen in Om J Prakash’s films but chooses to follow that path itself. The ending becomes problematic then as it is not a happy ending at all. After Amit elopes with Chandni, Shobha says that she wants her husband to come back of his own will. He does come back but only when he hears that she is expecting his child. Is his return really out of his own will? (Note that Chandni never falls pregnant once throughout the entire time span while Shobha conceives twice. The ‘family planning’ dig at her by a female acquaintance is a hint that while Chandni may make a fine romantic partner, she doesn’t have the maternal quality that would support Amit through the ages.) His renewal of this marital bond could be termed a tragedy because it is inconsistent with the ideas that the film supports early on in the narrative (the notion of being free, not being entrapped). By returning to be the dutiful father of the child and resume his god-like status, Amit has only trapped himself further.
It is ridiculous that we are expected to accept that this is a happy ending. The only character who could truly and honestly be happy is Shobha. For everyone else, this conclusion is likely to create more frustrations. We are never shown how Chandni resolves her problems with her husband. For all we know, they may have divorced and Chandni has died a penniless and homeless wreck.
Another reason why the ending is a tragedy due to the portrayal of the romance between Amit and Chandni. It is not about lust, it is a lyrical relationship with touching poetry (Main aur meri tanhaai aksar yeh baatein karte hain…). The ending fobs off her as being the past and not the present but she IS his present. She is his present because she occupies his heart and thoughts. And this is not unrequited love either, she responds back to him with full vigour and commitment. One scene says it all. It is when Chandni first meets him in hospital after their marriage to their spouses. She enters the room with a bouquet of red roses. The wordless confrontation between Chandni and Amit is charged with tension and excitement. The subdued refrain of Dekha Ek Khwab… is perfectly placed and as Chandni reflects shyly on her bold move, the echoing line of “Kya kahoon ke sharm se hai lab seele hue” suddenly gathers another meaning. The body language is important too, both the characters are angled towards each other, focusing on the other, as if daring one of them to make the first move. This scene is the epitome of love – two people communicating without finding the need to speak.
This particular sequence says more about love than the Swiss fields in countless Yashraj films ever will. It is this scene that begins to explain just why Yash Chopra is considered the king of romance. Otherwise, his batch of love films are quite flawed in many ways, relying upon the old ingredients of Switzerland, Lata Mangeshkar’s voice and poetry. Don’t get me wrong, the ingredients make up a charming dessert but I am never convinced by the cherry on the top. By the end of his films, I often ask myself if this newly united couple really deserve to be together (whether be it Silsila, Chandni, Lamhe or Dil To Pagal Hai). Only Veer Zaara had me convinced and that’s because I didn’t get the impression that either of them was just settling for second best.
Chopra likes to question order and old ways of thinking and this is not always easily suited to the romantic genre. You could argue that his Deewar and Trishul are more satisfying in this sense. But then I’ll save that argument for another time.
Yash Chopra takes the basic ingredients of a love triangle and adds an extra-marital relationship to give it that extra punch. In Silsila, fate still plays its cruel tricks. Shobha (Jaya Bachchan) is due to marry the pilot Shekhar (Shashi Kapoor) but he dies in a plane crash. Out of pity for Shobha’s unwedded pregnancy, Shekhar’s brother, Amit (Amitabh Bachchan) marries her and abandons his true love, Chandni (Rekha).
Silsila has very fine performances by the entire cast though Rekha is often distant and aloof. Her confrontation scene with Jaya is disappointing because her performance is flat. Her most effective scene is when she receives the letter with bad news from Amit. Jaya is more into her character (which has shades of her real life) and Sanjeev Kumar’s character is refreshing because he is not quick to be judgmental about his wife’s infidelity. There are memorable scenes such as the dinner party where all the four main characters meet and Amit and Chandni’s infidelity becomes glaringly obvious; not to mention the Holi celebration where the hard-to-remove red colours on Chandni’s clothes come to define the danger that she represents.
These scenes are effective because they represent a threat to the world of duty and respect that the narrative is trying to uphold. When Amit first meets his sister-in-law-to-be (but then turns out not-to-be) Shobha, he puts in the effort to make her laugh and smile. She makes note of their jovial conversation to which he replies, “Main apna duty nibhaa raha tha” (I was just fulfilling my duty). Duty, as well as the concepts of farz and karz, are established early on and run throughout the film as motifs.
Amit’s sense of duty is challenged when Shobha loses Shekhar’s baby soon after their marriage. With the death of the unborn baby, the reason for Amit’s dutiful act has now gone. “Hum azaad hain” (We are free), he asserts in a play’s monologue as his character denounces the false life of hypocrisy and entrapment (a performance to which he invites his mistress, Chandni). It is ironic that Amit does not follow the advice of his alter ego.
In the last act, Chopra chooses to criticise Amit’s very decision to take it upon himself to look after Shobha. One of his friends tells him that no-one had asked him to marry her, he chose to make the sacrifice. He chose to take the route of being god-like and should be consistent with his choice instead of pandering to earthly desires at the last minute. It is a scathing attack on him (and possibly all male martyrs in such melodramas) except that Chopra chooses not to develop it and more readily prefers the option of reaffirming Amit’s godlike status in the bizarre sequence of saving Dr Anand (Sanjeev Kumar) from an airplane crash.
The film wants to have its cake and eat it. It wants to criticise the notion of sacrifice and duty that are dime a dozen in Om J Prakash’s films but chooses to follow that path itself. The ending becomes problematic then as it is not a happy ending at all. After Amit elopes with Chandni, Shobha says that she wants her husband to come back of his own will. He does come back but only when he hears that she is expecting his child. Is his return really out of his own will? (Note that Chandni never falls pregnant once throughout the entire time span while Shobha conceives twice. The ‘family planning’ dig at her by a female acquaintance is a hint that while Chandni may make a fine romantic partner, she doesn’t have the maternal quality that would support Amit through the ages.) His renewal of this marital bond could be termed a tragedy because it is inconsistent with the ideas that the film supports early on in the narrative (the notion of being free, not being entrapped). By returning to be the dutiful father of the child and resume his god-like status, Amit has only trapped himself further.
It is ridiculous that we are expected to accept that this is a happy ending. The only character who could truly and honestly be happy is Shobha. For everyone else, this conclusion is likely to create more frustrations. We are never shown how Chandni resolves her problems with her husband. For all we know, they may have divorced and Chandni has died a penniless and homeless wreck.
Another reason why the ending is a tragedy due to the portrayal of the romance between Amit and Chandni. It is not about lust, it is a lyrical relationship with touching poetry (Main aur meri tanhaai aksar yeh baatein karte hain…). The ending fobs off her as being the past and not the present but she IS his present. She is his present because she occupies his heart and thoughts. And this is not unrequited love either, she responds back to him with full vigour and commitment. One scene says it all. It is when Chandni first meets him in hospital after their marriage to their spouses. She enters the room with a bouquet of red roses. The wordless confrontation between Chandni and Amit is charged with tension and excitement. The subdued refrain of Dekha Ek Khwab… is perfectly placed and as Chandni reflects shyly on her bold move, the echoing line of “Kya kahoon ke sharm se hai lab seele hue” suddenly gathers another meaning. The body language is important too, both the characters are angled towards each other, focusing on the other, as if daring one of them to make the first move. This scene is the epitome of love – two people communicating without finding the need to speak.
This particular sequence says more about love than the Swiss fields in countless Yashraj films ever will. It is this scene that begins to explain just why Yash Chopra is considered the king of romance. Otherwise, his batch of love films are quite flawed in many ways, relying upon the old ingredients of Switzerland, Lata Mangeshkar’s voice and poetry. Don’t get me wrong, the ingredients make up a charming dessert but I am never convinced by the cherry on the top. By the end of his films, I often ask myself if this newly united couple really deserve to be together (whether be it Silsila, Chandni, Lamhe or Dil To Pagal Hai). Only Veer Zaara had me convinced and that’s because I didn’t get the impression that either of them was just settling for second best.
Chopra likes to question order and old ways of thinking and this is not always easily suited to the romantic genre. You could argue that his Deewar and Trishul are more satisfying in this sense. But then I’ll save that argument for another time.
Thursday, 15 February 2007
Rewatching Yuva
Yuva, a multi-stranded tale, looks at life through the eyes of three male characters, Lallan (Abhishek Bachchan), Michael (Ajay Devgan) and Arjun (Vivek Oberoi).
Ratnam's tale begins at the point that all the three men meet. The narrative then rewinds back to the moments that led each character to this particular destination. Taran Adarsh considers this style as a flaw: “The film has loopholes aplenty. To start with, the film has been treated in an episodic fashion; the first 30-35 minutes focus on Abhishek and Rani's story. Then Ajay and Esha's track takes over, followed by Vivek and Kareena's portions And then politics and politicians take precedence.”
Whether you consider this narrative format as a ‘loophole’ or not, you can’t deny the influence that Yuva has had on other films. It marks a chain of movies that began to slice the narrative into various character perspectives (Silsilay, Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye, Bas Ek Pal and other films where characters are linked but never meet). Clearly, Yuva had an impact on other filmmakers in that it opened their eyes to the possibilities of what they could do with narrative. Not that Yuva is the place where such a style originated, in terms of world cinema, but in Bollywood it certainly set the ball rolling.
Within the context of the film, the narrative should not be considered a flaw as it is one of its biggest strengths. It allows us the space to be slowly taken in by each character’s mindset. A linear narrative could have resulted in more shallow character definition. Lallan has never been just another villain to me. Nor is Arjun just another lover boy. The post-interval bridge sequence (where the strands begin to tie up) is important because the characters are forced to come out of their comfort zones. Each and every character changes at this particular moment. The murder attempt tests Michael’s resilience in pursuing his political agenda; Lallan goes too far in trying to realise his ambitions and Arjun reluctantly has to put another man’s life before his own safety.
The political angle does not always convince. The details are a bit vague and Om Puri seems to be the sole representation of the entire political scenario. Khakee and Dev (released in the same year) were more interesting on this front. Still, Yuva portrays a noble message of working to serve your own country, a message along the same lines as Swades (also released in the same year).
There is a noticeable disdain for education, which is epitomised in the scene where Michael asks a teacher what she has ever done to change the world. Is education really the big bad wolf that it is made out to be here? I can’t entirely agree, I believe in the old saying ‘knowledge is power’. And education could serve as a useful companion guide to trying to change the world. Ratnam seems to be condemning the passive nature of a student in formal education. While teaching French, Radhika (Esha Deol) requests a student to stop asking questions about grammar as she is the person in charge of the class. The dislike for teachers becomes rather obvious here, according to Ratnam, they represent one of the causes of apathy and blinkered thinking among the young in India.
Years later, Abhishek Bachchan's performance still surprises. It is not a character or type of performance that the actor has repeated (as is the tendency with other actors when it comes to their landmark roles). The cockiness that he has portrayed from Dus to Bluffmaster is of a different, confident kind. Lallan’s arrogance stems from his self-hate and resentful anger. This is why Bachchan’s violent reaction to his wife’s infidelity in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna doesn’t have the same power as the moment in Yuva when he discovers that his unborn baby has been aborted. The child was meant to be his redemption.
The female performances shouldn’t be underestimated, they represent the thread of feminism that runs through it all. Radhika is a reminder of Kate at the ending of the Taming of the Shrew, she presents a picture of tradition and conventionality but has the ability to control events through her very appearance (she is always allowed to get away with white lies). Meera is a free spirit (a natural and likeable performance by Kareena Kapoor) but she decides that she controls her destiny as she takes it upon herself to cancel her impending marriage to the wrong man. And finally, there is Sashi (a strong and commanding Rani Mukherjee) who as she condemns men as all being the same, is unable to see that she is on a train journey to freedom, away from the shackles of married life.
Ratnam's tale begins at the point that all the three men meet. The narrative then rewinds back to the moments that led each character to this particular destination. Taran Adarsh considers this style as a flaw: “The film has loopholes aplenty. To start with, the film has been treated in an episodic fashion; the first 30-35 minutes focus on Abhishek and Rani's story. Then Ajay and Esha's track takes over, followed by Vivek and Kareena's portions And then politics and politicians take precedence.”
Whether you consider this narrative format as a ‘loophole’ or not, you can’t deny the influence that Yuva has had on other films. It marks a chain of movies that began to slice the narrative into various character perspectives (Silsilay, Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye, Bas Ek Pal and other films where characters are linked but never meet). Clearly, Yuva had an impact on other filmmakers in that it opened their eyes to the possibilities of what they could do with narrative. Not that Yuva is the place where such a style originated, in terms of world cinema, but in Bollywood it certainly set the ball rolling.
Within the context of the film, the narrative should not be considered a flaw as it is one of its biggest strengths. It allows us the space to be slowly taken in by each character’s mindset. A linear narrative could have resulted in more shallow character definition. Lallan has never been just another villain to me. Nor is Arjun just another lover boy. The post-interval bridge sequence (where the strands begin to tie up) is important because the characters are forced to come out of their comfort zones. Each and every character changes at this particular moment. The murder attempt tests Michael’s resilience in pursuing his political agenda; Lallan goes too far in trying to realise his ambitions and Arjun reluctantly has to put another man’s life before his own safety.
The political angle does not always convince. The details are a bit vague and Om Puri seems to be the sole representation of the entire political scenario. Khakee and Dev (released in the same year) were more interesting on this front. Still, Yuva portrays a noble message of working to serve your own country, a message along the same lines as Swades (also released in the same year).
There is a noticeable disdain for education, which is epitomised in the scene where Michael asks a teacher what she has ever done to change the world. Is education really the big bad wolf that it is made out to be here? I can’t entirely agree, I believe in the old saying ‘knowledge is power’. And education could serve as a useful companion guide to trying to change the world. Ratnam seems to be condemning the passive nature of a student in formal education. While teaching French, Radhika (Esha Deol) requests a student to stop asking questions about grammar as she is the person in charge of the class. The dislike for teachers becomes rather obvious here, according to Ratnam, they represent one of the causes of apathy and blinkered thinking among the young in India.
Years later, Abhishek Bachchan's performance still surprises. It is not a character or type of performance that the actor has repeated (as is the tendency with other actors when it comes to their landmark roles). The cockiness that he has portrayed from Dus to Bluffmaster is of a different, confident kind. Lallan’s arrogance stems from his self-hate and resentful anger. This is why Bachchan’s violent reaction to his wife’s infidelity in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna doesn’t have the same power as the moment in Yuva when he discovers that his unborn baby has been aborted. The child was meant to be his redemption.
The female performances shouldn’t be underestimated, they represent the thread of feminism that runs through it all. Radhika is a reminder of Kate at the ending of the Taming of the Shrew, she presents a picture of tradition and conventionality but has the ability to control events through her very appearance (she is always allowed to get away with white lies). Meera is a free spirit (a natural and likeable performance by Kareena Kapoor) but she decides that she controls her destiny as she takes it upon herself to cancel her impending marriage to the wrong man. And finally, there is Sashi (a strong and commanding Rani Mukherjee) who as she condemns men as all being the same, is unable to see that she is on a train journey to freedom, away from the shackles of married life.
Wednesday, 31 January 2007
Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard
“Alright, Mr De Mille, I’m ready for my close-up”
Image courtesy: lagruyere
A Billy Wilder classic, "Sunset Boulevard", is famous for many things. It is rare for a film to have an astonishing opening scene and to end it with an equally astounding one. But between the two moments, there are many memorable scenes and delicious dialogues that steam up the screen.
The famous opening scene of a dead man floating in the swimming pool sets the dark and blackly comical tone of this film noir. It is his voice-over that starts the flashback of the story that explains how he ended up in there. "Sunset Boulevard" is a biting satire on Hollywood and while it takes the elements from the genre of film noir, the voice-over - a blend of tough talk and wisecracks - is a crafty way of lampooning the narration of more conventional Humphrey Bogart gun dramas.
The flashback shows Joe Gillis (William Holden) as a scriptwriter who has fallen on hard times. He meets Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a reclusive and forgotten actress of classic silent films. She spies an opportunity to use him to help orchestrate a career comeback (Norma Desmond would disapprove of this word, in one scene, she says that it's not a comeback but a RETURN). The two form an oddly intimate relationship, which is destroyed by Norma's delusions, possessiveness and insecurities.
The noirish elements are blended with humour and horror. The first time that Joe meets Norma, she is fretting over her dead pet monkey. This leads to a bizarre and surreal scenario where Joe watches Norma and her butler, Erich von Strocheim (Max von Mayerling) give the monkey a serious and sombre burial in the middle of the night. The horror is further amplified by the appearance of the mansion, a bleak and cheerless place. When Max shows Joe his room, he remarks, "This room hasn't been used for a long time". It's perhaps an insignificant remark but it epitomises the mansion and Norma herself - she is an actress and a person who has not felt alive for a long time. The combination of horror, comedy and bleak tragedy is the result of the Billy Wilder-Charles Brackett screenplay partnership. Wilder wanted it to be serious while Brackett wanted more humour. This is the last time the two worked together.
My favourite moment in the entire film is the sequence where Norma goes back to the Paramount studio to meet her director-mentor - Cecil B. De Mille. If you watch the part in the studio carefully, De Mille is introduced after a build-up. The camera pans along many faces and eventually leads up to the enigmatic director. Such a build-up is provocative and suggests that he is the cause of Norma’s vulnerable insanity. He lies to her that he likes her script but doesn’t have the integrity or honesty to admit otherwise. De Mille says of Norma “a thousand press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit” but what about him? If he is ready to tell a barefaced lie then who knows how many lies he spouted during the prime of Norma’s career. Maybe it is his lies that finally twisted Norma’s mind. The actor/director plays himself but was he aware that his character would appear in such a subtly unflattering light?
Gloria Swanson really was a famed actress of silent films and here displayed a theatrical mode of acting that contrasts sharply against William Holden’s natural performance. Her clothing and get-up has a comical touch and seems to be a tribute to Greta Garbo. While viewing one of her many films, she gives a hint of an admiration for Garbo – “We didn’t need dialogues, we had faces. There just aren’t faces like that anymore. Just one maybe – Garbo”. While Swanson’s hand gestures and incisive expressions are in place, there is also a natural and vulnerable facet to her performance. You get the sense of an inner pain that Norma is struggling to suppress. Gloria Swanson successfully merged the two different styles of acting to come up with a knockout performance. She truly was a great actress whose career could have gone on for longer had it not been for the big bad Hollywood system. .
The term ‘classic’ is an overused one but it is a term that this rich film definitely deserves. A masterpiece.
A Billy Wilder classic, "Sunset Boulevard", is famous for many things. It is rare for a film to have an astonishing opening scene and to end it with an equally astounding one. But between the two moments, there are many memorable scenes and delicious dialogues that steam up the screen.
The famous opening scene of a dead man floating in the swimming pool sets the dark and blackly comical tone of this film noir. It is his voice-over that starts the flashback of the story that explains how he ended up in there. "Sunset Boulevard" is a biting satire on Hollywood and while it takes the elements from the genre of film noir, the voice-over - a blend of tough talk and wisecracks - is a crafty way of lampooning the narration of more conventional Humphrey Bogart gun dramas.
The flashback shows Joe Gillis (William Holden) as a scriptwriter who has fallen on hard times. He meets Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a reclusive and forgotten actress of classic silent films. She spies an opportunity to use him to help orchestrate a career comeback (Norma Desmond would disapprove of this word, in one scene, she says that it's not a comeback but a RETURN). The two form an oddly intimate relationship, which is destroyed by Norma's delusions, possessiveness and insecurities.
The noirish elements are blended with humour and horror. The first time that Joe meets Norma, she is fretting over her dead pet monkey. This leads to a bizarre and surreal scenario where Joe watches Norma and her butler, Erich von Strocheim (Max von Mayerling) give the monkey a serious and sombre burial in the middle of the night. The horror is further amplified by the appearance of the mansion, a bleak and cheerless place. When Max shows Joe his room, he remarks, "This room hasn't been used for a long time". It's perhaps an insignificant remark but it epitomises the mansion and Norma herself - she is an actress and a person who has not felt alive for a long time. The combination of horror, comedy and bleak tragedy is the result of the Billy Wilder-Charles Brackett screenplay partnership. Wilder wanted it to be serious while Brackett wanted more humour. This is the last time the two worked together.
My favourite moment in the entire film is the sequence where Norma goes back to the Paramount studio to meet her director-mentor - Cecil B. De Mille. If you watch the part in the studio carefully, De Mille is introduced after a build-up. The camera pans along many faces and eventually leads up to the enigmatic director. Such a build-up is provocative and suggests that he is the cause of Norma’s vulnerable insanity. He lies to her that he likes her script but doesn’t have the integrity or honesty to admit otherwise. De Mille says of Norma “a thousand press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit” but what about him? If he is ready to tell a barefaced lie then who knows how many lies he spouted during the prime of Norma’s career. Maybe it is his lies that finally twisted Norma’s mind. The actor/director plays himself but was he aware that his character would appear in such a subtly unflattering light?
Gloria Swanson really was a famed actress of silent films and here displayed a theatrical mode of acting that contrasts sharply against William Holden’s natural performance. Her clothing and get-up has a comical touch and seems to be a tribute to Greta Garbo. While viewing one of her many films, she gives a hint of an admiration for Garbo – “We didn’t need dialogues, we had faces. There just aren’t faces like that anymore. Just one maybe – Garbo”. While Swanson’s hand gestures and incisive expressions are in place, there is also a natural and vulnerable facet to her performance. You get the sense of an inner pain that Norma is struggling to suppress. Gloria Swanson successfully merged the two different styles of acting to come up with a knockout performance. She truly was a great actress whose career could have gone on for longer had it not been for the big bad Hollywood system. .
The term ‘classic’ is an overused one but it is a term that this rich film definitely deserves. A masterpiece.
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