Raghu Kulkarni

Mani Rathnam has always been someone that has paid great attention to his scripts, even when based on his own stories. So when he scripts(with two others) based on a Tamil literary classic, it was always going be to an icing on the cake. He has done complete justice to the power struggles and the palace intrigues of the original story and brought it to life with his trademark wit, humor and entertainment. The actors are perfectly cast save Vikram IMO. As the blood lust driven crown prince, I was unable to buy his angst or the disappointment that drives him. The only weak link in an otherwise superbly entertaining fare. While it's easy to get carried away and compare it to the costume opuses of the west aka GOT, let's just take a step back and understand that we dont have the budgets YET to reach there. But what is missing in the tech brilliance it more than makes up in the truly engaging plotting. Watch a lovely song picturized on a truly irreverent role by Karthi, who is part clown, part swashbuckling hero, charming his way through sticky situations. His unexplored chemistry with Trisha was just about beginning to be explored and made the heart ache for more. Hope we get to see that in PS2. The Vaishnava godman character played by Jayraman is such a delicious piece of writing, very tongue and cheek hole poking affair at how people still tend to pit the gods in the triumvirate against each other. If only the Gods could do something to fix that one wishes ;-)!! A special note for the subtitling. It was just terrific work! As someone that does not follow Tamil but do speak a different South Indian language, the great subtitling helped make sense of the dialogues I was hearing but not following. The movie needs to be supported for it's great story telling and welcoming back Mani Rathnam to form.

Conceptually what an outstanding film! While so many stories begin with a great concept, they lack so much in execution but Chaitanya Tamhane, exceeds in his execution like a champion. For those of us, brought up on a diet of firebrand performances of lawyers in courts, this telling captures what the judicial system in India is truly like! Old, outdated, cantankerous and caught in archaic laws of the 1800s yet! Just like the laws being dispensed, in the crusty, weather beaten, paint peeling, likely musty courtrooms, the participants seem to also move about at a snail's pace in the proceedings. Watch a character evince amazement that a judge is "fast" 'cause he dispenses five cases a day, whilst most of the time all he is doing is assigning new dates for the next hearing! To his credit he also gets in his courtroom a whole group of people hauled in for a misdemeanor as frivolous as any, who he does dismiss off with a gentle reprimand and fine! As absurd as the main plot is, a folk singer being tried for aiding and abetting the suicide of a sewer worker with his apparently fired up lyrics, so is the judge's insistence on staying within the absolute confines of the interpretation of the law book, the times be damned! There are so many commentaries on the ridiculousness of everything on display. COURT is both a social commentary and a satire on the state of affairs in present day India. The defense lawyer played by a yuppie, wine sipping, jazz listening and yet with his heart in the right place, Vivek Gomber, contrasted by the prosecution lawyer Geetanjali Kulkarni, who dons the robes by day, prepares for her case after she has prepared dinner for her family, fed them, checked on her kids' homework. The universes each character in the movie seem to have their own orbits, seldom intersecting and yet it seems life goes on, slowly, arduously and one tick of a second of the clock at a time. Then there is the folk singer played by Vira Sathidar. What a performance! He belts out songs one after another, pleading, goading, taunting and rousing his audience to awaken, stand-up and be heard! Just a phenomenal characterisation. Every supporting character is so carefully etched out, the judge with his faux need to uphold the values of decency of his courtroom(such a nutty scene, its incredibly hilarious and sad), the train companion of the public prosecutor, the wife of the deceased, the parents of the defense attorney, all just lovely bits of writing!!! Watch COURT when you are in a contemplative, expansive mood, for the film demands this kind of attention from you. Its like a slow pill that will keep unwinding in your consciousness over time, revealing a bit by bit, the infinite observations it makes! It deserves our attention!!

SERIOUS MEN begins very well, full of sparkling wit and dialogue, building expectations as you settle into your seat. A Dalit PA to a Brahmin astrophysicist, he is a real smart cookie. He calls himself the 2G generation who have an education but not the luxury of kicking back and having to do nothing to enjoy what life has to offer. He wants his son to be a 4G person, the generation that goes to a public school, gets an education and works the job of designing why condoms need to be ribbed while making boat loads of money. So far so good. Ayyan(Nawazuddin) shenanigans his way into making sure his hearing impaired son gets into the best school, and attention the school can offer including scholarships et al. What is on display are his hustling ways, his negotiation abilities and an innate sense of closing a deal - lessons for Trump anyone? However things take a turn as his plotting comes back to get him and affects his darling 'genius' son, who begins to unravel under the constant glare of performance and publicity. The movie based on the book of the same name by Manu Joseph has some great plotting I am sure, but by the time it translates itself on screen, the labor begins to show and things start to go awry. Nawazuddin is in fine form throughout. Shweta Prasad as the politician's aspiring daughter wanting to take over her father's empire is an efficient watch, but in the end, I wish it had not lost touch with the irony it is trying to highlight. 'Tisnt something that will stay with you alas!

What if a graphic novel was written about an old legend that had gods, their curses, a goddess and her favoritism? What if it was a story about man and his insufferable desire to benefit from someone else's rifts, never mind they are powerful beings who you cannot fight with humanly strengths? How about debauchery, greed, sorcery, magic and a wretched existence? Such a graphic novel has never been written, but short stories by the hundreds have been written in Stephen Kingesque fashion when King wasnt even known to the world or to Marathi author Narayan Dharap. The world created inspired by those stories is a viscous, sticky and tricky mess of man's many follies and yet out of it emerges a fable, a warning for all of us encapsulated beautifully in the very first frame of the film with a saying from the Mahatma about resources on the earth being aplenty for all but there simply isnt enough place anywhere in the universe for the greed that follows from man's infinitesimally small mind! TUMBBAD by debutante Rahi Anil Barve is at once poetic, lilting and agonizing. It is so NOT SIMPLY a horror movie as most of us Indians will want to slot every movie into a genre. It will stay with you long after you have seen it. You wont want to rush back to theaters to rewatch it, but it will have seeped into your consciousness enough for it to be a pop-up dream, rousing you suddenly in thoughts and ruminations. It's a story of the horrors of some of man's original sins. Its clearly a labor of love. Nothing like it as far as my knowledge goes has been made in Indian cinema. For all lovers of story telling of the original kind to emerge out of our immense and rich traditions of kathaakaari, this movie needs to seen, applauded and encouraged. If you have loved PANS LABRYINTH in the past, then go watch TUMBBAD for what we can give to the world in the form of the fantastical telling. I so wish the distributors give it a proper international release as it deserves. It is quite mesmerizing. All its faults get swept away in the end in its strong visual story telling, so sweeping, so overpowering, that is ALL that remains with you, long after the credits have rolled.

The repeated shots of beautiful waves weaving shapes and froth fill the camera every so often after a seemingly dramatic juncture in the plot. If this was meant to be director Shakun Batra's way of conveying metaphors that have been just mouthed by his characters in the movie, then all it serves to do is elicit exasperated sighs of labored exhaustion at least from this one member of the audience :-(. Unbaked, uncooked, badly mixed ingredients make for an end product typically inedible for even the hungriest of palates. That is what GEHRAAIYAAN turns out to be in the end. There have been major rave reviews of Deepika's acting prowess on display and I searched high and low for it in the depths of the mess presented and found it difficult to unearth. Perhaps the only time the proceedings seem tolerable is when seasoned artistes like Naseeruddin Shah or Rajat Kapoor adorn the frames. They bring a semblance of what could have been if the plotting had been given some TLC. Its a lot of angst over essentially everything superfluous and fake and will likely be buried in the fathoms of saline water that no one ever ends up shedding in this rather sorry affair. I would'nt recommend it even if there was nothing new to watch in your watch list, instead choose a watch of anything else you have liked in the past over this rather tepid and vacous attempt :-(

Much has been said about the Neeraj Ghaywan episode GEELI PUCHI starring Konkona and Aditi Rao Hydari. As always Neeraj deals with caste politics as it impacts present day India even today and he throws in a twist with gender based complications and love thereof! Konkona's work on this character, whether entirely directed by Neeraj or some of her own doing is brilliantly observed. From her purposeful walk, not to be confused with the more sensual gait, to her hardened look at everything around her, she projects the absolute determination of someone out to make the best of whats available to her given the circumstances. Her most tender moments are on display with the stray that she feeds and has for a pet, profusing affection as though it were her own, at once chiding and showering it with what it needs. If there was a metaphor for fulfillment of give and take without judgement, then this should be it!! It is one of the most underrated scenes of the short. The plot is strong, the performances lovely, Aditi Rao Hydari providing the delicate and easily hurt vulnerability. Another player that really puts in an outstanding performance in however short a role is the actor playing Aditi's husband. The character's endearing love for his wife, just comes through beautifully. However the last episode ANKAHI is what stays with you a long time. Its a world of privilege all around and the issues the characters grapple with may seem superfluous, but they are real too. Shefali Shah and Manav Kaul's silences say much more than the spoken dialogues by the rest of the characters. Manav Kaul in particular is especially lovable. He has realised that hearing people speak is futile 'cause more often than not they lie when talking. He prefers to read minds through their eyes and it is just a heartbreaking moment when he rues the fact that he was taken in even by that one trait of his which he thought was dependable!! While the first episode is nice as a revenge tale, it is a little more masaala in its approach. Its skillfully done, with actors putting in their best. The loneliness and desire of the Madam Bouvary like character that Fatima Sana Shaikh plays and her thug husband who cant give her what she needs played by Jaideep Ahlawat is delicious in parts. The weakest episode is KHILAUNA. The domestic servant character Meenal played by Nushrat Bharucha is completely miscast though she tries valiantly and the rest of the happenings a bit too laborious in trying to shock, more than anything else. The construct is worked hard at of course, but just fails to sit in the end. Overall very watchable for three out of four with one very easily avoided!

Set like a play, acted like a play and making an impact like a play would as well, this talkative film poses so many smart questions, that you never realize when you the audience have stepped into the shoes of it's protagonist and want to solve the problems or at least empathize with, the conflicted party. And in a smooth reversal of roles, you are forced to mature, traverse the arc of transformation of becoming the change you would like to see in others. Just delicious acting, writing and setup at its best. It's the kind of living room conversation you would only dream of having but never actually will. I wondered at the end how a Helen Mirren or a Meryl Streep would have fared in the role Emma Thompson plays with such delicacy. Just glad she chose the project. Daryl MaCormack is the perfect, living each day as it comes foil to the carefully planned existence that Thompson character is, playing the charming younger voice in a tale for the generations, bringing up oh-so-many of those things all the older generation doesn't get about the generations after them. In the end it's a tale of self-realization, freedom and liberation all at once and in no particular order, just a super, super telling!

A friend recommended simply on a WhatsApp chat group - "watch C U Soon. What a cracker jack of a movie." I pushed it to the back of my mind. Then a couple of days later another friend on a separate WhatsApp group said something similar. Again pushed to the very back of my to watch list. In these pandemic times, when consuming online content is at its highest, priorities get made and unmade in nano seconds. Yet we were fortunate to not do any research on this movie, not read any reviews, not even watch a trailer and go really cold into a watch on a bored late evening. The best hour and forty minutes we spent in a long long long time. Certainly since the advent of the C-virus! So I would recommend the same to other gentle viewers. Just watch it cold and blind. Relish the smart pacing, the terrific editing, the great acting and the urgency and tension grip you. I wish other people recommend the same of the movie, without talking too much about it. Its an experience that everyone deserves to discover on their own. Kudos to the team that.assembled this! More power to you and your ilk !!

The restless aspiring Hindustani classical vocalist protagonist, of “The Disciple” Sharad Nerulkar, tries his hardest to settle his mind, as advised by the foreboding voice of Mai(his teacher’s guru) on a series of secretly recorded conversation tapes, on his many late night or daytime sojourns on the roads of Mumbai. He goes to meditation classes, chants Om in low humdrum tones, practices on the terrace of his apartment building by nightfall in the solitude of when the world is asleep, pays obeisance to his Guruji in the form of doing several chores, from massaging his back and feet to settling doctor’s bills, does practically every bidding of his but that which he desires, musical brilliance, eludes him. Technique can be taught but talent is a gift that you either have or not, Mai informs him when describing another of her failed students. Sharad is determined to be not like his father, a failed musician who turned to academia and scholarly works on the world of Hindustani classical music. In a manner of speaking he has been setup for failure, in the pursuit of excellence in a field he is just not cut out for. Sharad’s father has exposed him to the intricacies of puritanical music appreciation, but has passed on nothing much else. Sharad has convinced himself he will do what his father couldn’t and it’s this journey you get sucked into. it is difficult to watch the melancholy play out as it does but also cannot turn away from. You are riveted by the absolute labor this man puts in to be good at something he simply cannot be! Yet it does not glorify the hopelessness, simply documents it and therein lies its pathos, like for many of us who labor on in life, in whatever pursuits we are thrown into or have chosen to. The film is a slow burn, taking its time in setting up frames lovingly, making sure every moment within its frame of reference is captured and at once available to the viewer. Sharad’s absolute need to scale those heights of purity, where he can become one with the creator, puts him at constant loggerheads with some of the those around him that seem to make progress much more easily. But then it is his story, joyless, full of self-doubt, anger and self-pity even at times, that unravels in front of us. It’s a compelling, demanding and observant film. Director Chaitanya Tamhane who has written the feature as well, is a fine craftsman, who makes it clear, his cinema isn’t entertainment, but food for thought, which like all those difficult books of poetry that puzzle, frustrate and confound on their first reading, make sense little by little, when it’s time for them to reveal themselves, by opening a nugget of wisdom, a grain at a time. All the non-actors, turn in an enthralling performance. Aditya Modak as Sharad has a fixated gaze, which is unsettling. His physical transformation is mesmerizing. His skin tone changes as the years roll by, terrific detailing by the team. Mai's God like voice over is unforgiving, chiding and setting unattainable goals, asking viewers to be careful when choosing to listen to our internal voices !!! Watch it in solitude when you feel generous with time and attention to spare, as it absolutely asks of you. You might yet have a moving experience. This is a meditative experience, more for introspection than for coffee table conversation. There simply aren’t clever lines that abound that can be recalled, no comebacks characters have for you to quote, just their humdrum lives and yet perhaps a lesson for those tuned in to its frequency.

Ramin Bahrani's craft of capturing the class situation, between the haves and have-nots is in full display for most of the movie, adapted from the book by Aravind Adiga. One wonders really how long has the movie been in the making of both creators minds. They were classmates apparently at Columbia and Adiga dedicated the book to Bahrani. The actors are in fine form by and large and the sexual tension onscreen superb while the western educated Pinky's character is interacting with those that are used to and raised around the patriarchal milieu of feudal India. The narrative flattens after the second act leading into the third. Unsure if the adaptation is the cause or if the original plot does not lend itself well to the visual style of narration. Adarsh Gourav as the protagonist packs a fairly nuanced and heart felt interpretation of the 'brown man' setting out to take what he finally believes is his place in the world alongside the 'yellow man' warning the 'white man' his time is coming to a close. An engaging watch for sure, it does leave you with an unfulfilled appetite in the end.