...For a movie to put a critically acclaimed one like Parineeta in the shade, the bar has to be set pretty high.
In fact, but for the obsession award-givers have with melodrama and seriousness, this "great" movie from 2005 should have given quite a run at the awards as well to the supposedly more appreciated "Parineeta" and "Black".
"Bunty Aur Babli" is one of those once-in-a-lifetime perfect movies that does not stop to meander at all, that does not give into the temptation to pull in the maudlin though it has no (or minimal) relevance to the core theme.
An amazingly well-made crime caper, with nary a false-step (unless one wants to dwell on the unimportant fact that the action almost never reaches Mumbai though it professes to do so), Shaad Ali Saigal has authored a brilliant offering on the heels of his earlier highly appreciated "Saathiya".
Bunty Aur Babli is thoroughly irreverential, features two of the most versatile stars in contemporary Indian cinema - Abhishek and Rani - who have acquired an almost chameleoning ability to inhabit the characters they play, wonderful music that blends in so wonderfully into the whole (another outstanding score from Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and totally apt lyrics from the RD Burman of lyricists - the one and only Gulzar!), great cameos by stars of yesteryear and in particular, superb use of Aishwarya and Amitabh, and borrows liberally from great ideas from impostors and con-men the world over and weaves them into the Indian context.
More on the music. "Kajra Re" has been written about extensively (and deservedly so - Alisha Chinai did full justice to the song) but I like so many of the rest too (Sonu Nigam and Mahalaxmi Iyer's "Chup Chup Ke" is delightful, so is "Dhadak Dhadak" sung by one of my perennial favorites Udit Narayan in consort with the uniquely gifted Sunidhi Chauhan, and Sukhwinder Singh and Jaspinder Narula showcase their talent yet again in the title number co-sung by Shankar Mahadevan) that this has quickly risen into my must-own-CD collection (along with Dhoom, Hum Tum, Dil Chahta Hai, Parineeta, Taal, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam,...)
(BTW, have not the last 5 years been one of the most productive ever for fans of Hindi film music in terms of range of selections, quality of songs - lyrics and music, new voices coming up, et al; but this is subject for another post!)
The wondrous part of Bunty Aur Babli is that even the negatives seem to become a positive. For example, after a long time, Rani Mukherjee seems chubby (to put it kindly, especially when she dances around in black hotpants). Yet my wife and I could not agree on whether it was a case of her letting her fitness get away from her, or it was a case of a dedicated actress putting on flab to live the role as a small-town Babli making it good!!! BTW, Abhishek Bachchan is perfect - he lives the role, I could NOT find a flaw in his performance, he lives every disguise and act he puts on, and his body of work (Yuva, Dhoom, Bunty Aur Babli, the cameo in Hum Tum, the supposedly outstanding performance in Sarkar, and more) already puts him on track to match his fathers opus.
Superb movie - this "Bunty Aur Babli", I will see it again and again; it merits dissection and analysis like a "Sholay" or a "Mr & Mrs 55"
So much so that Bunty and Babli have made it into the common folklore as symbols of the ambitious small town Indian youth...see it to experience it!
Saturday, April 01, 2006
A Great Movie ... and a Let-Down...Part 1
Over the past month or so, we have seen more movies than we saw in the year before that.
We saw "Rang De Basanti" in a theatre and liked it a lot.
Then we decided to get caught up on the 2005 Hindi movies that we had not seen. We have seen two thus far, were delighted with one while the other was a slight let-down.
Let me start with the "let-down" first. Perhaps if we had seen this first, we might have enjoyed it. But we did not and the other one so enthralled us that "Parineeta" was perhaps doomed from the very beginning.
Having a wondrous and simple beauty as the heroine, one of the most improved dramatic actors as the hero, and a wonderful sound-track from Shantanu Moitra that has dominated the airwaves for over 10 months now (at least), it was but obvious that our expectations were sky high.
I have not read Sarat Chandra's story so am not sure if the problem is with the original or with the way in which Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Pradeep Sarkar have interpreted it in the screenplay. But the movie begins well and has several lulls that are frustrating.
The worst sequence is the one where a (hopelessly mis-cast and ugly) Sunjay Dutt is bragging about how he became a steel magnate. It really challenges one's intelligence to think that his sister, who has been gushing over his desire to eat her "hand-made" cake has not told the rest about his life story. It was set in the 1960s so it is possible (though improbable) that this beloved and wildly successful brothers pictures were not available to share with his doting sisters and their "like-family" neighbours. But by making him narrate his own life's story, it makes the Sunjay Dutt character singularly self-obsessed and arrogant, and contrasts dramatically with what emerges later.
Equally bad is the inadequate direction given to the beautiful Vidya Balan on how to balance laughter with tears. The best example of this is of course Kamalahaasan in Ramesh Sippy's "Saagar". But otherwise, it is best to avoid such sequences entirely - the inexperience of Pradeep Sarkar as a movie director shows through here.
And the end was so melodramatic, with the scrawny Shekhar (Saif Ali Khan) suddenly seeming strong and breaking open the wall between his house and Lolita (Vidya Balan) - even though it was plausible that she would have left for the airport before he got through with his efforts.
Great music, a haunting performance from Saif Ali Khan, a beautiful new heroine, excellent supporting cast (other than the aforementioned and aging Mr Dutt), great sets and wonderful recreation of th 1960s era Calcutta, brilliant photography, a director with a brilliant feel for visuals, Rekha in one of the most dignified and stately "item numbers" since her own "Salaam-e-Ishq" way back when, a star turn by using Amitabh Bachchan as the sutradhar providing the voice-over, all of it has gone into making an above-average movie (and not the great one it could have been) because the debutante director did not know where to draw the line on the maudlin.
Thankfully, we still had memories of the great movie to fall back upon...will dwell upon that in a separate post.
We saw "Rang De Basanti" in a theatre and liked it a lot.
Then we decided to get caught up on the 2005 Hindi movies that we had not seen. We have seen two thus far, were delighted with one while the other was a slight let-down.
Let me start with the "let-down" first. Perhaps if we had seen this first, we might have enjoyed it. But we did not and the other one so enthralled us that "Parineeta" was perhaps doomed from the very beginning.
Having a wondrous and simple beauty as the heroine, one of the most improved dramatic actors as the hero, and a wonderful sound-track from Shantanu Moitra that has dominated the airwaves for over 10 months now (at least), it was but obvious that our expectations were sky high.
I have not read Sarat Chandra's story so am not sure if the problem is with the original or with the way in which Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Pradeep Sarkar have interpreted it in the screenplay. But the movie begins well and has several lulls that are frustrating.
The worst sequence is the one where a (hopelessly mis-cast and ugly) Sunjay Dutt is bragging about how he became a steel magnate. It really challenges one's intelligence to think that his sister, who has been gushing over his desire to eat her "hand-made" cake has not told the rest about his life story. It was set in the 1960s so it is possible (though improbable) that this beloved and wildly successful brothers pictures were not available to share with his doting sisters and their "like-family" neighbours. But by making him narrate his own life's story, it makes the Sunjay Dutt character singularly self-obsessed and arrogant, and contrasts dramatically with what emerges later.
Equally bad is the inadequate direction given to the beautiful Vidya Balan on how to balance laughter with tears. The best example of this is of course Kamalahaasan in Ramesh Sippy's "Saagar". But otherwise, it is best to avoid such sequences entirely - the inexperience of Pradeep Sarkar as a movie director shows through here.
And the end was so melodramatic, with the scrawny Shekhar (Saif Ali Khan) suddenly seeming strong and breaking open the wall between his house and Lolita (Vidya Balan) - even though it was plausible that she would have left for the airport before he got through with his efforts.
Great music, a haunting performance from Saif Ali Khan, a beautiful new heroine, excellent supporting cast (other than the aforementioned and aging Mr Dutt), great sets and wonderful recreation of th 1960s era Calcutta, brilliant photography, a director with a brilliant feel for visuals, Rekha in one of the most dignified and stately "item numbers" since her own "Salaam-e-Ishq" way back when, a star turn by using Amitabh Bachchan as the sutradhar providing the voice-over, all of it has gone into making an above-average movie (and not the great one it could have been) because the debutante director did not know where to draw the line on the maudlin.
Thankfully, we still had memories of the great movie to fall back upon...will dwell upon that in a separate post.
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