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Monday, December 29, 2014

Anurag Kashyap's Ugly

Anurag Kashyap’s masterstroke for his latest film is to title it Ugly, for no other word can describe the people in it, and the situations they get into, so aptly, making it possibly one of the most ingeniously titled film of the year. The beauty, well and truly, lies in its simplicity, and still this is only one among the many things that Kashyap gets right with Ugly.  

The plot of a kidnapped girl, with her father and cops searching for her has some similarities to Dennis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, and is evocative of the film in its atmospherics, style and the usage of background score as well, but Ugly also has a touch of Coen Brothers’ dark comedy. Yet, this is not homage to neither, for Anurag Kashyap, in fine form as a writer after a really long time, gives it a dynamic edge, and brings certain uniqueness like only he can, be it the characters he lovingly wrote for everyone, including the artists playing small parts, in the film, or the knack with which he finds humor in its darkest form in situations where we least expect them.

Two scenes stand out. The one where the father and his friend try to lodge a complaint about their missing daughter, while the Police just toy with the information they are provided, and the scene turns out quickly to be farcical, that we almost forget the bigger picture. Yet, in the very next scene, Kashyap shows the same Police men to be business like and supremely effective when they come to know that it was their boss’ daughter that they were trying to find. Another scene is when Shoumik tells Rahul that his friend Chaitanya was the real kidnapper and asks him to spy on him. Chaitanya goes full throttle in abusing Rahul and letting him know of his place, and that it was on his account that Rahul has been surviving all his days. All this while the audience knows that Chaitanya is secretly betraying Rahul. Another great example of stunning dark humor. My Hat is already off.

The acting in Ugly deserves separate mention in itself. Everyone gets author-backed roles, and they knock each line out of the park. Ronit Roy’s restraint is far more frightening than his rage, Tejaswini Kolhapuri’s helplessness can make us shift in our seats with guilt, Girish Kulkarni’s cop Jadhav elicits guffaws every time he’s on screen, and all others at their competitive best in their roles. This can serve as a great acting lesson.

No Anurag Kashyap film is complete without the man’s self indulgence. Ugly provides two instances of it. The first is when Shoumik asks Jadhav to sing an item song which goes with words like nichodna and jhinjhodna. This scene does not add anything to the narrative, makes the characters look inconsistent, does not go with the flow of the rest of the film. The only purpose it serves is to give a delightful pay-off, but can be avoided otherwise. Other instance is when a character dances in his underwear forever. These scenes hamper the pace of the film in the second half and when we are getting increasingly concerned about the fate of the girl.

Ugly is not a morality tale; it is a constant reminder of the futility of misplaced notions of revenge, infidelity, betrayal, and lies that pervade human nature. This is not a world any of us would want to be a part of, and yet it is all too real. If its’ character don’t meet violent ends, they were delivered violent kick in their guts, taking the wind and even personality out of them with its brutality. Had the film been cut by about 30 minutes, we could have a masterpiece in our hands. For what it is, however, it still is one of the most unique Indian films to come out in a very long time.  

Bravo Anurag Kashyap.



Monday, December 22, 2014

Morning Show: The Revival


I started this blog with an aim to write about every movie I watched in the theatre, and for a while it ran well; the numbers were good too, in fact better than my personal blog. When I felt reasonably satisfied with my work, I also intended to use this as a showcase to get a film reviewer job at fullhyd.com, a website based in Hyderabad, whose work I loved. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, probably I wasn’t good enough, anyway they had many people within their company vying for that coveted position, and they wanted to outsource it.

Down the line, I also realized that I was not really qualified enough to be critiquing movies, coz neither I had the understanding of the art of film criticism, nor I was really knowledgeable on Indian Cinema in general and Telugu Cinema in particular. Also, ennui and mediocrity of our cinema caught up with me and I lost interest in the whole process of writing about movies, just to add to the chaos already prevailing with the release of every film. Writing about movies should be fun, and when I’m not having it, I saw no point in continuing my efforts.

I wanted to revive this blog for a long time now, but didn’t find the energy or inspiration to do so. I’m not saying I’m inspired even now, but I wanted to give this blog another shot. This time, this is not going to be a review blog. I’m done with movie reviews, unless a really irresistible offer comes my way, which, frankly, I don’t think will ever come up. The second coming of this blog will be also about movies, but only those that I like and want the readers of my blog to watch. Also, I won’t be writing about the movies that everyone will watch, like an Aamir Khan film or a Christopher Nolan one. They don’t need my endorsement. Instead, I aim to write about the lesser known or lesser publicized movies, which I find good enough to my taste. 

I don’t know how periodical this will be, coz I have to factor in my laziness at some point. The film has to pester me so much that I have to write about it, and people who know me, know my taste too, so the film had to be special for me, for me to write about it. I think I offer myself some vanity in this regard, and also due to the simple fact that this is my blog. Also, at this point I’m not sure if I would be writing only about the latest releases which I catch up in theatres, or I would be writing about the ones I watch in my laptop. I’d like to keep that open, but I promise, I won’t write anymore about Taxi Driver. The point is that the movie has to impress me so much that I have to write about it just to get it out of my system.

So, here I am writing a post on this blog after more than a year, I don’t know about my readers, but I’m looking forward to the first movie I will write about in this second innings. Hope it comes my way soon. I can’t wait.