Filmiholic

…one of the March 12th bombs went off here, inside the Sea Rock.

When I first saw the hotel, in 2005, I was told by my companion that it was rumored to be haunted.  We had drinks and bad Chinese food in the quasi-Tiki bar at the back, looking directly down on the blackness of the ocean as we ate.  As we left through the lobby afterward, the place was indeed eerily deserted.

Now, when back there in December last year, the hotel was vacated, windows all removed, street dogs and guards stationed out front.  On my last day in the city, I was told that the property had been bought by Mandarin Oriental and is due to be renovated.

A brilliant rendition of that horrible Black Friday can be seen in Anurag Kashyap’s 2007 release.   

Cue the cute girl in the gold bodysuit:

The film biz is indeed everywhere.  As I first set foot inside the national arrivals terminal at the airport, I was greeted by an SRK Tag Heuer ad.  Then SRK was over at the hotel the other night for an awards ceremony, Mr. Bachchan pere was due by today for another event, and Jimmy Sheirgill was at the coffee shop for a bite to eat this evening.  (He was interviewed on Anupama Chopra’s Picture This Friday evening, and revealed the most beautiful singing voice.  Quite stunning.)

Pleasant visit to Mount Mary Basilica (of Amar, Akbar, Anthony fame) earlier today, interesting to see Indian touches (removal of shoes at the entrance to the church, garlands around the neck of Jesus on the crucifix, and a very attractive hijra waiting on the altar to touch the feet of Jesus on the crucifix).  My favorite moment was when a street dog came trotting in and proceeded up the center aisle of the church.  Priceless.

Here are a few pics:

Only thing missing is Sreenivasan Jain:

Telugu film shoot on Sunday morning:

Taxi Ganesha:

It was just announced that Deepa Mehta’s film Water, Canada’s entry this year for best foreign film at the Academy Awards, has been selected as one of the final group in the running.

An earlier review of the film is here.

It has been a while, hasn’t it? 

My, my, Dhoom 2 was one month ago exactly, then a fortnight back, a screening of The Namesake (more on that soon) and I’ve seen nothing else until picking up this Merchant Ivory DVD that Netflix brought weeks and weeks ago.  The Christmas season is just too busy.

I found this 1978 movie title when searching for something, anything with Victor Banerjee that wasn’t Joggers Park.

It was made with funding from Mervyn Bragg’s London Weekend Television, the amazingly small sum of 250,000 pounds UK, and filmed in Rajasthan.

The amber-eyed object of my affections, who I’d last seen on celluloid swinging madly from a train exclaiming “Mrs. Quested, look at me!”, plays a swinging Maharaja, though a different kind of swinging (think safari suits with cravats and massive aviator shades).  He lives in his palace, kept company by his bored and beautful sister, played by Aparna Sen. 

The pair are visited by two rabid art collectors.  One, Mr. Haven (played by Larry Pine), is American and heir to a canned peaches fortune, and the other, is Lady Gee (Dame Peggy Ashcroft, who previously played Mrs. Quested to VB’s Dr. Aziz in A Passage to India), a flinty old India hand who is there to buy for a museum in London.  They are pursuing a collection of paintings that have been left to the Maharaja, and will stop at nothing to convince Victor Banerjee to sell them.  Add to the mix a slimy Saeed Jaffrey as the slippery manager of the palace museum, who seems to have his own various side dealings going on.

Mr. Haven tries to woo the elegant Maharani (whose husband is nowhere to be seen) while Lady Gee sets her young blonde travel companion on the Maharaja, whose wife is off on a pilgrimage so she can bear a son.  Ruth Prawer Jhabwala’s writing is a perfect take on a certain segment of traveler and a stinging commentary on how Brits see Indians and vice-versa.

See it or skip it?

See it!  It only runs 73 minutes, Victor Banerjee (and his wardrobe) is marvelous as the rock star-cum-maharaja, Dame Peggy is quite bitchy, a pleasantly surprising change fom her usual fluffy slippers Auntie roles, and the dust and marble palace atmosphere just oozes off the screen.  As a bonus, there’s a short interview with Saeed Jaffrey in a separate segment, where, oddly, he speaks more about his work with Satyajit Ray than the making of Hullabaloo.

Have a listen to this story from NPR, set in Afghanistan, and see if you can identify that ringtone in the first minute of the story.

This girl would definitely recognize it.

This wonderful (though too short) half-hour 1973 documentary written by James Ivory is included by Merchant Ivory Productions along with the DVD of Bombay Talkie.

It opens with a mention of item girl, and dancer par excellence, Helen’s 500-film milestone.  Over the next 30 minutes we hear narrator Anthony Korner solemnly intone about the siginificance of dance numbers in Hindi films (”…vicarious luxury”,”…make do for love scenes”, “…puritanical censorship rules”) as we witness the always upbeat Helen in a black bodysuit and tights doing her daily yoga routine and applying her green glitter maker-up for the typewriter dance number with Shashi Kapoor in Bombay Talkie.  She is asked about retiring and says that she has a boutique opening up soon in the Sheraton where she’d like to do “something nice and groovy”, but admits that “once you put make-up on, you can’t leave this line.”

But the real treat of film is Helen herself, in the many snippets from her many films, doing what she does best: dancing and vamping it up on screen, surrounded by such interesting elements as a caged ”savage” in blackface and gold hoop earrings, Easter Island-like giant idols with lights blinking where their eyes would be, and Shashi Kapoor in canary yellow cuban-heeled boots hopping about on the keys of a giant typewriter.

What a difference it is to watch this 1970 Merchant Ivory production after Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. 

There are the vaguest of similarities: they both deal with marital infidelity, and both cities their stories are based in look lovely (Bombay in this case, New York in Kabhi Alvida).  But there the likeness ends.

Bombay Talkie launches with the coolest and most creative opening credits I’ve seen in a Merchant Ivory film:  a series of painted filmi posters that would make Jonathan Torgovnik plotz with joy, bearing the images and names of cast and crew.  What’s even neater is that we see the posters in motion being carried by people en route to where they will be displayed.  The first one, bearing Shashi Kapoor and the late Jennifer Kendall’s names as the lead actors, is borne across the street in front of Victoria Terminus.  (It occurs to me that this train station has appeared in more movies as an immediate placeholder for Bombay, even moreso than the Gateway of India.)  Before the credits close, we’ve also seen the Taj Hotel at Gateway and the famous Bombay tetrapods in the water.

Jennifer Kendall is Lucia Lane, a British novelist in India to do research for a possible book, and she meets Vikram (Shashi Kapoor), the handsome, popular Bollywood leading man, as he is filming a dance sequence at a movie studio.  While he rehearses, she’s spoken to by the instantly smitten and impoverished writer Hari (Zia Mohyeddin).  As he describes - with contempt - the action they’re watching, the dapper, yellow-shirted and -socked Vikram cavorts on a giant typewriter with Helen (dazzling as always, here in a gold lamé swimsuit) and a group of girls.  “We dance on the keys,” Lucia is told, “and the story typed is our fate.”

Vikram is married to the very beautiful Mala (Aparna Sen), who is distressed because she can’t conceive.  She appears with him in one filmi picturization set in Venice of all places, a gorgeous referral back to Ivory’s first film, and foreshadowing of a later Merchant Ivory collaboration based in Italy like A Room with a View.

Before long, he and Lucia, who has a daughter in a boarding school in Geneva and who is rootless and needy, fall headlong into an affair, which they barely attempt to conceal.  They cavort around Bombay, sometimes accompanied by Hari, forming the third side of an odd triangle, as he looks on enviously at Lucia throwing herself at Vikram.  The relationship careers all over the place, leaving much distruction in its path.

Merchant Ivory have examined the clumsy meeting between firangis and Indians in several films before, and since, Bombay Talkie. 

Here Lucia, like so many other visitors to India, admires the clothes (”I must get one of these,” she says as she strokes Hari’s green silk kurta) and brings with her set notions about the country.  At a dinner one night she remarks “I’d love to see Indian village life.  You must have colorful festivals; they do in Mexico.”  On another occasion, she expresses the frequently misguided notion of India as a holier-than-us Ground Zero, telling Hari she needs to visit an ashram because “Isn’t that what India’s for, to make people feel peaceful?  I need someone to guide me, some holy and wonderful person.”  (Are you rolling your eyes and gagging too?)

For being so gullible, Lucia ends up at an ashram with a pudgy ping-pong playing guru who mouths incredible babble about universal love and shows home movies - like a hunter back from safari - of the rich ladies-who-lunch who are his followers in Los Angeles (of course).

Lucia is an unsettled mess, and Vikram is a spoiled misogynist.  He tells Mala about taking Lucia on a shoot: “It’s an intellectual relationship; you’re too stupid to understand.”  Later, he consoles the jealous Hari saying: “When I’m finished with her, you can have her.  She’s damn good for her age.” 

It’s a mildly uncomfortable film to watch, seeing so many unlikeable and flawed people making such a mess of their own lives and the people around them, but it’s interesting to see Merchant Ivory’s portrayal of this slice on Indian society at the end of the psychadelic, free love 1960s.  If you feel a somewhat disagreeable taste in your mouth after watching it, the DVD also includes a 30-minute film called Helen: Queen of the Nautch Girls that serves as a lovely little palate cleanser.

See it or skip it?

See it, to see a young and handsome Shashi Kapoor in a movie that examines his industry, and to see him in such a negative role, working with the woman who was his real life wife.

On August 14, 1981 Yash Chopra’s romantic drama Silsila was released, and ran a disappointing 16 weeks in Bombay. 

In spite of a star line-up to die for - Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Badhuri (who came out of retirement for the film) and Rekha - as well as stylish wardrobes, picturesque locales and on top of it all the frisson of the rumoured love triangle between the principal actors, the movie was not well received.  The general agreement is that audiences at large objected to the storyline centered around an adulterous couple. 

Air Force man Shekhar (Shashi Kapoor) is engaged to Shobha (Jaya Badhuri).  He urges his brother Amit (Amitabh Bachchan) to come to Kashmir and meet his would-be babhi.  The younger brother, who is a poet and playwright, attends a friend’s wedding and is captivated by the dazzling Chandni (Rekha), and woos her with recordings of his poetry and bouquets of roses while he’s away in Kashmir.  Soon those two are declaring their love and planning to marry.  Before they can make their plans public, Shekhar is killed in an airfight and Shobha reveals that she is pregnant with Shekhar’s baby.

Seeing how distraught she is at being single and a mother, Amit marries her, sacrificing his chance to be happy with Chandni, who he writes, telling her to forget him and go on with her life.  Before long the newly married couple are in a car accident and Shobha loses the baby.  The doctor who treats the pair turns out to be the husband of Chandni, Dr. Anand.  When his wife learns of her husband’s patient, she appears at the hospital, bearing a bouquet of roses for Amit, and setting off the affair that would soon consume them.

Unable to keep away from each other, Amit pursues Chandni and they spend every moment together that they can manage away from their spouses.  Initially, though mildly concerned, Shobha seems to convince herself for a while that nothing is happening and then, when confronted by a cousin, she refuses to hear what he has to say about Amit.  Eventually, at a Holi celebration when Amit has drunk too much bhang and dances provocatively with Chandni, it becomes blatantly obvious to both Shobha and Dr. Anand that there is something palpable between her husband and his wife.

Just when the adulterous pair decide to leave their marriages and be together, their time is short-lived.  Their friend Gurdip strongly disapproves of their choice, and in order to attend his parents jubilee wedding anniversary at the gurudwara, they agree to appear separately as friends of Gurdip and his wife, rather than as a couple.  While at the gurudwara, Amit remembers his own wedding and looks miserable.  A call comes in saying that Chandni’s husband’s flight from Bombay has crashed, and the two rush back.

Amit learns from Shobha that she’s carrying his child.  He saves Dr. Anand from the burning fusilage and says to Shobha “I’m back and I’ve broken all ties with the past.”  The movie closes with the same song from its opening, except now, the couple it shows are not Shekhar and Shobha, but rather Amit and Shobha.

It was interesting to watch Silsila within days of having seen Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, their two very different onscreen outcomes separated by 25 years and all the changes in social relationships during that time.  The main person who makes the big decision at the end of Silsila is only Amitabh Bachchan’s character, whereas the splits come in Kabhi Alvida as both SRK and Rani’s characters take actions that propel their friendship to deeper levels.  I found it frustrating that after the character of Amit declares he’s back with Shobha, we never got to see Chandni again, now how she was faring.

For the classic that it has become, Silsila is not without imperfections.  I love the musical picturizations of Hindi movies but even for me, this film just had too many.  In one case, two songs back-to-back!  Like Kabhi Alvida, I think Silsila could have been pared down and shed at least 15 minutes easily, if not more. 

With the emphasis on youth today in Hindi movies, it was almost jarring to see the 40-ish Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor as swinging bachelor brothers, especially in the scene where the two shower together, and we see the normally tall and lean AB a bit thick around the middle.  The scene of the two brothers out with the clearly uncomfortable Shobha at the local club, drinking and dancing, is rather funny, to see how stiff everyone looked, especially all the men in their jackets and ties, highball glasses firmly in hand as they shuffle on the dancefloor.

Filmed just after the close of the 1970s, Silsila’s costumes contain of a few howlers:  Amitabh Bachchan in black too tight, too short jogging shorts, an orange leather trench coat, and also in a fur coat that foreshadows a Sexy Sam to come.

There also appears to be a competition for who can carry the largest coaster-sized sunglasses on his or her face, with Jaya and Rekha running neck-and-neck for the prize.  But the women’s wardrobes save the day. 

Jaya and Rekha both appear almost entirely in saris, all of them beautiful.  Jaya’s Shobha favors patterned saris with short-sleeved, more modest cholis, while Rekha’s cooly elegant Chandni appears only in solid color saris and minimal, often sleeveless cholis.  Add to this her long, thick flowing hair, dramatic eye make-up and deep berry-colored lip gloss and Rekha’s look calls to mind a mixture of the Robert Palmer Addicted to Love video models and Diana Ross during her Studio 54 days.

Yash Chopra’s romantic streak is all over Silsila, in the poetry that Amit speaks, in the many shots of AB and Rekha lolling around on the grass staring into each other’s eyes, and in the rampant use of flowers (tulips, roses, and jasmine) as symbols of the beauty and doomed nature of Amit and Chandni’s love.  Even the names of the various flowers in a competition that Chandni judges hint at a narrative that will elude the ill-fated pair:  My love - We two - An evening of wait - Love story - Daredevil - Eternal bliss.

Desi Music Club is marking the 25th anniversary of Silsila here, with a radio blog of the film’s songs.

See it or skip it?

See it.  It’s a classic in the filmography of all the actors and the director, and historic among mainstream Hindi movies, decades after its initial rejection.  It contains several famous scenes, including the “Mein aur meri tanhai” speech and the Holi song Rang Barse.

Like so many movies set in Bombay, G.P. Sippy’s 1992 release Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman has at its center a young man leaving his family home (in this case, in Darjeeling) to make a bade admi out of himself in the big city.  The very likebale local hero starts out on the right foot, praying at the local temple for success on his engineering exams.  After the good grades are in, Raju (Shahrukh Khan) hops a train straight to VT and in search of a distant relative to stay with.  Turns out the relative is long gone, and Raju takes refuge in the only place he can think of: a temple. 

Enter Nana Patekar, who serves as a cross between a Greek chorus in the film and the Emcee in Cabaret (without the makeup and the leering).  In the role of Jai, a street-wise street performer in a floppy cricket hat and a trenchcoat, he appears while Raju is praying, startling him.  “Did I scare you?  If so, you should go.  There’s no place for cowards in Bombay,” Jai declares.  Recovering, resolute, Raju says “I’m not leaving.”  Respecting his pluck, Jai settles down to eat and shares his food with Raju, asking him: “Do you know how to live in Bombay?  Eat, itch, switch off the light.”  He takes Raju under his wing and helps him get his footing in the neighborhood, and in the meantime, by way of his street performances, Jai tells us about the city.  In his first such scene, in front the Gateway of India, Jai tells his audience:  “This is Bombay, you won’t get anything for free.  Only the one who looks up can make it here, no place for those who look back.  Push and make your way.”

The city looks bright and shiny, with shots often filmed against a backdrop of tall apartment buildings, as well as the obligatory shots of couples by the waterfront and sneaking kisses down on the rocks.

Raju meets Renu (the sweet Juhi Chawla) who lives in the hero’s new neighborhood, and helps him get a job, which is cause for celebration among Raju’s friends, cue the title song.  As Nana plays about five different instruments, the neighbors dance and, in an uncanny foreshadowing of DDLJ, as SRK parades around with the trappings of the big man he wants to become (suspenders and walking stick), he also dons a fedora that looks a lot like the one he will wear three years later in the role of Raj in the Yash Chopra mega-hit.   

Just as love starts to flourish between the two, Raju’s bold critique of one of his firm’s projects catches the eye of a colleague, Sapna (the former Mrs. Saif Ali Kahn, Amrita Singh), who is also the daughter of the firm’s owner, Mr. Chhabria.  She sees to it that Raju’s profile continues to rise, and introduces him to a lifestyle he’s never known before.  After he gets a promotion, while Renu waits outside for him to go celebrate, Sapna whisks Raju off to Delhi for a meeting.  That night, when work is done for the day, he waits for her in the hotel lobby to go to dinner, and she appears in a strapless gown.  Shocked at the scandalous sight of Sapna’s bare shoulders, Raju asks “Don’t you have a sari?” and gives her his jacket, so she can cover her shameless self.  Then he takes her to a dhaba and laughs when she asks for a napkin, showing her this really cool trick that people who aren’t filthy rich have: licking your fingers!

Sapna’s father disapproves of his daughter’s romantic interest in Raju, telling her “You are two shores of a river that can never meet.”  He schemes to discredit Raju, putting him in charge of a bridge-building project, and getting one of his office flunkies to ensure that the sand in the concrete is sub-standard, leading to tragic results later on.

Raju romances Renu in his company’s waterfront bungalow where Sapna has installed him, separating him physically from his roots and his people.  In the romantic number between SRK and Juhi, after he coaxes her into wearing a strapless, almost flesh-colored dress (”I feel shy” the virginal heroine protests), the English translation of the lyrics are too funny:

Raju:  Let us be lost in a new world, unite and become one.

Renu:  Your insistence is incorrect, but I have some compulsions.       (???)

Innocent people die after the project Raju’s in charge of is completed, and a there is a courtroom case at the climax before the story is resolved.

It’s interesting to note that this movie was released in 1992, just a liberalization was taking hold in India.  The portrayal of the evil Vestern habits so heartily embraced by the rich is simplistic (the drinking, smoking, Raju explaining Sapna’s behaviour with “She was brought up with Western culture, she’s a little advanced”), and it’s contrasted with the pureness of heart of Raju, Renu and the others in their neighborhood struggling to get by.  Clearly, this is to reassure the average moviegoer that Bharat Mata’s traditional values are best and will endure, in spite of whatever dastardly temptations her people may be subject to.

Raju’s experience serves as a morality tale of what can happen when you lose sight of your basic values in the rush to the top.  When he reminds Renu “I didn’t come here to sleep on the street”, Juhi’s character declares that she only dreams of “.. a small home, and love and respect”, telling Raju that the path he’s on is not right, and she leaves him.   At his lowest moment, when he’s lost Renu and the death of some of his neighbors seems to lay on his shoulders alone, Raju returns to the temple in tears saying to God “Trying to touch the sky, I have sunk to the ground.  Help me out of this darkness.”

See it or skip it?

See it.  It’s a light time-pass and one of the movies always mentioned as one of SRK’s stepping stones to the superstar he is now.  Nana is entirely charming in this all-knowing sutradar role he finds himself in every so often (à la Hu Tu Tu).   

Plus the fashions are good for a chuckle.  Shoulder pads and huge disc earrings on Amrita, SRK in a feathery mullet that would make Billy Ray Cyrus nod in approval.  But why is Nana wearing a trenchcoat in a city whose temps are typically over 30 degrees?