Jhumroo: a musical Kishore da

Film: Jhumroo

Director:Shanker Mukherji
Music: Kishore Kumar

Language: Hindi

An interesting yet now-typical story of ‘Jhumroo’ revolves between a rich landlord Dwarkanath (Jayant) & a village clutched under his cruelty. The story begins with Dwarkanath’s daughter Anjana (Madhubala), who returns home from the city, after many years. A simpleton pretty girl, Madhubala is appalled by her father’s brutality towards the poor. It is a classic shot taken, where a man wails in pain as he gets whipped by a fatty, but the whole thing is presented in seamless silhouette. While Anju is heaped with many regulations by her disciplinarian father, she finds herself getting attracted to a village boy Jhumroo (Kishore Kumar). Jhumroo lives in the village with his mother Kamali (Lalita Pawar) and is loved by everyone in the village.  

Now, the tragic plots of the story: who is Jhumroo? Who is Kamali? Who is Anju?

Credit: Bitter Films

Obviously Dwarkanath wouldn’t tolerate his pretty daughter roaming around with a filthy villager & he will do what every villain does. So he locks up his beautiful daughter & fixes her marriage with a funny-looking guy Ramesh (Anoop Kumar), who happens to be his secretary. This surprised me because I wondered that if Dwarkanath was so class-conscious, why he would want to fix-up his sensible daughter with a buffoon? Dwarkanath’s brother Bihari (M.Kumar) is a drunkard, who giggles through his scotch with baseless dialogues. He lives in an outhouse and happens to be in permanent depression for losing his wife & only son. Jhumroo‘s mother sniffs in dark corner of her kitchen, craving for her daughter, who was kidnapped 20 years ago. The usual tom & jerry chase between the rich & the poor, the prince & the devil and the movie obviously throws a happy ending: the hero & heroine live happily ever after!

I couldn’t understand till the end, what was the script all about. The actors definitely did full justice to their respective characters, however the sudden jerks in the story made it all look awful. The screenplay was well-written, but there were major & noticeable continuity breakages throughout the film. For instance, there is a scene where Jhumroo is helping Dwarkanath climb the hill and I could see Dwarkanath on the screen, but in the very next second there are two characters on the screen Jhumroo & Dwarkanath ‘Bhoom, he appeared & disappeared. It all seemed like director just wanted to make this film & get rid of it, as the loose ends in the film, induced criticism.

Madhubala

However, I loved the way movie opened into train whistling through the tunnel with the title track playing as Madhubala catches the breeze by her window.

Watch the Title Track!

Pikoo's Day

While he ran across the paleness of garden, murmuring his little heart to blossoms, he smoothly painted my infidelity with each stroke of his innocence. I timidly peeped through my own reflection, and felt a slight of guilt but was withdrawn away by my vigorous desires of being with another man!

Film: Pikoo's Day

Director: Satyajit Ray

Language: Bengali

Duration: 25 min

Pikoo's Day

‘Pikoo’s Day’ opens with an upper class Bengali family living in a vast bungalow, where a young boy Pikoo peddles his school holiday across the house in cold excitement. The previous night had revealed a lot of secrets to him, while the approaching morning demands a beautiful day ahead. While Pikoo clutches on the loud whimpers & anguish voices of his mom & dad fighting like maniacs beyond the closed doors, he spills out the tale to his ailing grandpa. A typical grandpa with popped-out mouth, cylindrical glassed & a torn vest lies in his deeply sunken bed & appalls. A calling bell hanging above his headstand, cries out loud the denial of the dying old man living with his son and his family. While the phone keeps galling with his mother’s boy friend scaling an afternoon together, the characters in the film kept stunning me with their unregretful attitude.  The boy bribed with pack full of colors and drawing sheets, runs across the garden to capture every flower available under the sun till he reaches a point & wonders if he could find a color to capture the transparency of a beautiful white lotus that grows in filth. As the drop falls on his black lotus & blurs its existence, a hue is formed in his pupils that look like a grey cloud reflecting in a dead lake!

The story kick-starts with an unfaithful wife, who is a negligent daughter-in-law & a cold-hearted mother going ruthlessly romantic with her brother-in-law, while the old man in the next room (father-in-law) breaks through the world silently. Innocence rumbles in pain in Piku’s eyes, when he finds a mother locked in a room with another man while he feels the damp-dead body of his grandpa lying next door.

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray has tended to capture the hidden fright of a small boy, who plays a subtle mediator of human relationships. The idea depicted across the film is plain but very brutal, since it’s been revealed from a kid’s point of view. The story has been adapted from Satyajit Ray’s very own written ‘Pikur Diary’ and has been presented with swift & simple camera angles. The director has specifically concentrated on the script, taking care of the dialogues & expressions of the actors, with a familiar touch of locality in the feel of the film. Satyajit Ray has reacted to a very beautiful mood with this film & has made another grand Ray flick to fulfill the malnourishment of human relations.

A binding memory from our childhood.

Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai: when the sea rumbled

‘I had gone a-begging from door to door in the village path, when thy golden chariot appeared in the distance like a gorgeous dream and I wondered who was this King of all kings!’

- ‘Gitanjali’ by Rabindranath Tagore

Film: Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai

Director: Milan Luthria

Genre: Drama/action/romance

Language: Hindi

Mumbai Rewind

Underworld flicks in Bollywood are known for brutal murders, stripped off chic, revengeful hero, instant gunshots, AK-47, crazy mouth, flesh & life wailing for a good screen presentation. However, this one was an underworld story with intense emotions, locking the big mouths of audience.

‘Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai’, also known as ‘Mumbai Rewind’ is brainchild of Rajat Arora, where a tale of two gangsters is narrated by once DCP Agnel Wilson (Randeep Hooda) using strong elements of human life in Bombay, from beggary to stardom, from slavery to kingship & from sane values of a ‘good’ gangster & the evil one within the dark shadows of underworld. While one gangster lives & thinks like a real Sultan, the other tends to play Hitler, Wilson blames himself for the disastrous condition of Mumbai. The story begins with Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgan), who grew up in dungeons of dock as a porter, where he fried woods night & day & smuggled goods for the underworld under the mark of his innocence. The painstaking darkness of the dock made him humble inside while he became the biggest man of underworld. White-clad attire & an equally shining heart, Sultan fearlessly ruled the sea & divided the land into others to rule. The Robin Hood of the poor, the Romeo of love & the drum of generosity, Sultan has a special diversion towards Mumbai city, which he often calls his ‘Mehbooba’. The big guy has the weirdest man tailing him while he falls in love with Bollywood actress Rehana (Kangana Ranaut) & walks into her life like a wannabe lover.

Shoaib Khan (Emraan Hashmi) plays the other gangster, who is exactly the opposite of Sultan Mirza. A diplomatic man with no values, Shoaib is a petty crook who is in love with Mumtaaz (Prachi Desai), a salesgirl in a jewelry store. Shoaib dreams of becoming like Sultan Mirza or probably someone bigger & tends to go out of his way to achieve that level. Sultan hires him for the underworld jobs, while Shoaib readily becomes brutal each day. The two contrasts with values, beliefs & imagery of the film, making the audience sit on the edge & watch them.

Sultan Mirza's Mumbai

There is a lot happening beyond the borders of a tiny underworld tale in the film. Each character has a separate genre of drama depicting a revolutionary Bollywood flick. The politics uses a dwindling space, while the romance has its qualifications with faithful & unfaithful love. Sultan & Shoaib keep creating a gorge of restlessness among the audience as they clash & meet, back & forth. The story doesn’t deviate at all but throws unbelievable climaxes each time. The silences maintained by Devgan are practically the best element of the film, where he looks sharply, observes mildly, speaks carefully, walks ordinarily yet elegantly & sways grandly. The dialogue delivery by both the gangsters is unbeatable & the expressions make a masterstroke. The story reaches a stage, where the narrative slowly coincides with a plot packed off with wild guesses & an anxious mind.

The story is outstanding & screenplay is tight and the watertight direction by Milan Luthria has given an amazing flick to Bollywood. The camera moved smoothly throughout the film with simple & smart compositions. However, I felt that the lighting didn’t do complete justice with the screenplay of the film. There were few places where I wondered why the director didn’t concentrate on lighting for such an important scene. The casting was perfect, though I also felt that they could have done better without any chic in the film. Hats off to Rajat Arora for scaling out such wonderful script that raves so much beyond love & violence.

Dot Forehead: A Film by Gowtham Shravan Kumar

Film: Dot Forehead

Director: Gowtham Shravan Kumar

Language: Hindi

Genre: Thriller

Synopsis: A detective thriller by a student film maker, which portrays a typical now-age detective with his partner, swaying his hands into a recession victimized  PG owner clutched in a mysterious company's foul game. The story has been adapted from the adventures of  'The Red-headed League' written by Conan Doyle. This version is re-written by Gowtham Shravan Kumar, keeping in mind the Indian scenario & situation of the same story.

Endless ages & endless brainchild of revered writers, who held my brain upside down, I introduce you to another film maker Gowtham Shravan Kumar, who focuses on the personification of modern audience, yet his approach is ordinary. His hero, Rajyavardhan Rathore is also an inspiration of Sherlock Holmes, who runs his razor-like brain with Watson-like partner (Vidya Bhooshan Tripathi), to solve the case of mystery & fraud. Rathore is a lawyer, not very much into practicing law, but playing detective. He looks ordinary unlike the modern heroes & has a strong liking towards Satyajit Ray & Arthur Conan Doyle. His friend & partner, Vidya Bhooshan Tripathi is a typical real estate agent, who sleeps, talks & walks money, dumb from heart but strong from the top. Rathore & Tripathi get involved in a mysterious case, where the cause of vigilance is nothing but a small black mole. They discuss, they retaliate, and they spark & reveal the mystery with justified dialogues.

Sets of vault room

This was Gowtham’s first fiction as a film maker with limited resources, tight budget, time & manpower. The crew was scanty but the spirits were high, the sets messed up but hasty in every sense, so he rose out his brain, to create another Indian character inspired by Sherlock Holmes. I wouldn’t call it the ultimate version of much awaited brainy heroes, but an amazing base & kick-start for the one that we’d been watching during our childhood, reading via our teenage & awaiting for our generation. The director is yet to season up but has already initiated the process of a better cinema. 

Watch the student short film ‘Dot Forehead’ by Gowtham Shravan Kumar & spill out the comments & feedbacks, as per your brain kicks!

Dot Forehead Part 1

Dot Forehead Part 2

Das Rad: Sense of Rocks

Appalling at locomotion

Film: Das Rad

Duration: 8:25 Mins

Language: German

Directors: Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel, 
Heidi Wittlinger

A radical glance into the archaic age, phasing through the present and softly diminishing into the future, Das Rad has presented a summarized version survival on earth. Rocks, which have been the stagnant witnesses through the making and apocalypse of several civilizations, play a key role in the film. The geologic aspect in form of a massive ocean where various seasons, place beautiful metaphor to depict transition. The contagious lichen irritating the backs of rock heads, the skinny clouds taking over the planet and then the sharpness of sun peeling away the darkness straighten up the proximities with the cycle of growth. Though history claims to have several different ages coming each time after the eclipse of Stone Age, the film gives a quick narration of the development and destruction caused by the mankind. The invention of wheel, the inheritance of roads and transportation hence resulting into the disastrous state of nature from the beginning to the world’s end is the key message provided by the film. 

Watch Das Rad

Heroes that Played Detectives!

Morons fooling my kidhood

The Heroes of action & thrill danced like buffoons in our young heads, roughly holding an impression where we all knew in our hearts that they do not exist. They portrayed characters of Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Wonder-girl or even the spoofs, but they never fancied our nights. We switched to the Indian version of the same comic heroes like Naagraaj, Phantom, Doga etc. but they too stayed aloof by my mind. A young detective always played in me & I wondered what if there might be a hero who'd be ordinary like me & can still be Superb...

Having a maniacal love for the crime fiction since childhood, I adorably watched all the detective  serials that made our young brains engaged in hunting out ideas, to build a criminal plot. The figure that we dreamt in our childhood: a shadow left to be lit, while his tall hat & stiff smoking pipe gave him the borders as the smoke rings made their way out. Yeah, it was Sherlock Holmes. Then came the time when black & white TV sets were the richest properties & the casts playing in those sets were the heroes of wisdom. I remember passing stealing glances at the Bengali detective Byomkesh Bakshi, a character created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, who was deeply influenced by Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Bakshi was the hero of every age and whenever he was caught in a mishap with an ordinary looking criminal, they banged the hell outta my little heart as I formed awe for the detective master among the psychotic whirls of graveyard. I was impressed!

Feluda, Topshe & Jatayu

That was the demand of our times, when kiddies from the tinier world of dreams used to get scared as well as exhilarated watching them perform. Then the lapse of generation & time abruptly threw me in front of detective boosters walking around the town in suave packages, smashing boots, bullet-proof waist coats & plenteous derringers hanging by their cuffs. They spoke in alien tone, they lived like some wall smart figure just born from the no where land of nowhere and they fought like heroes that didn’t even feel like mine. I wasn’t impressed, but still I watched. I yawned to death, but I watched. And one day, I decided not to sit in front of the idiot box awaiting my hero back to life. I dug him out in books! Yeah, it was the master of Indian writers Satyajit Ray: the man who threw endless rings of brainy treatment to my hero & there he stood like the one, who’d just walked out of filth, to ruin the idiotic version of detectives roaming around in the city, making us bore into our little dilemmas. It was Pradosh Mitter alias Feluda, the ultimate private investigator, who thrilled out the teenage of mine with his partner Topshe & friend Jatayu, and made another true Indian-bong connection with the sincere efforts of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes. I was impressed again!

My heart leaped excitement in when it read
                          'The lamp burnt on the table and beside it sat the dead man.'

Feluda & the bunch

Watch them in action!

Love & Betrayal: Confidentially Yours

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Film: Confidentially Yours aka Finally, Sunday

French Title: Vivement dimanche!

Director:  François Truffaut

Language: French

Genre: Crime/Romance

He stiffly stares through the frosty glass window, where the hot blonde's are passing in their skinny outfits, unaware of the world beyond their vision. He is so lost in the paleness of their beauty that he couldn’t see my eyes famishing him & that I too have a woman inside me. So what if I have copper hair & black eyes and I dress up like a road maniac! I still crave for your love, can’t you see that?

Confidentially Yours  is much of an exposure to the crime passion victims betrayed in love & relationship. Shot in a French atmosphere, the film creates a major anxiety right from the beginning, where Claude Massoulier (Jean-Pierre Kalfon), a mysterious character is shot dead while shooting birds. With all coincidences seasoning for the climax, a set of finger prints of Julien Vercel (Jean-Louis Trintignant), an estate agent are discovered on Massoulier's car. The confusion begins, when the police accuses Julien for Massoulier’s murder and claims that Marie-Christine Vercel (Caroline Sihol), Julien's wife, was Massoulier's mistress, while Julien is left only with dilemmas. The whole mess puts him into a hiding in his own office, where his secretary, Barbara Becker (Fanny Ardant) defends him and leads her private investigations, creating plots one after the other. Julien’s lawyer, Maitre Clement (Philippe Laudenbach) intends to turn in Julien to the police and promises that he can bring him back by justifying his crime for the infidelity of his wife, as per the French laws. While Barbara continues her investigation in her own crummy way to prove that his boss is innocent, she keeps colliding with all the negative characters in the film & surprisingly manages to draw conclusions after each one. The psychotic characters keep bringing goosebumps throughout the film, shifting the suspicion to the next one. Barbara is constantly followed by the police, a suspicious man, an unknown caller & her ex-husband, creating complex situations of mystery & thrill. The film takes an interesting turn while offering ample suspense to the audience along with dark satires playing past our senses, and the love factor actually encapsulates in the story!

The story is based on "The Long Saturday Night" by Charles Williams. The film is classic example of standard American crime movies like the ones by Hitchcock. A complete noir material, this one is shot in classic black and white covering a generic class of brains. The casting is simple & to the point and the camera moves patiently & weirdly throughout the film. The dialogues made a good plaster for the story as the director used good amount of humor to relieve stress & background music kept up with the visuals, steaming out a hot thriller.

About the Director

 

François Truffaut wasn’t much of a good pupil, but was a passionate reader. He bunked school to catch shows, at the age of 7. The real passion made him choose a life, where he constantly pitched in ideas & then there was never looking back. ‘Confidentially Yours’ aka ‘Vivement dimanche!’was his last film released in 1983 after which he was detected with brain tumor and died in 1984.

Check out the Trailer

Love is much younger: Heads & Tails

Film: Malek We Ketaba (Heads and Tails) 2006

Director: Kamla Abu Zekri

Starring: Mahmoud Hameida, Hend Sabri

The universe has its own chemistry with the survival on earth and so does the natural drive to love and betray for the most beautiful, applied on all mankind. Malek We Ketaba aka Heads and Tails is a story about three lives struggling to reach out their goals of ultimate bliss. While each one has an unconditional withdrawal towards the road of fog and frost, they keep muddling within seeking peace & love. After finding about his wife’s infidelity, Dr. Mahmoud (Mahmoud Hemida), an acting coach finds himself breaking away and swiftly coming together, as he falls in love with much younger girl Hend (Hend Sabri). Hend is a student of Dr. Mahmoud scrambling with her acting career and her abrupt break up with her boyfriend Tarek (Khaled Abol Naga), a talented but less-liberal, lazy photographer.

While the movie revolves around the clash and misconceptions between the three lives, it also dramatically polishes up the emotive flow of situations falling on the highway. The characters play hostile in the beginning and get narrative at the end of each plot. The verbal mishap between Hend and Dr. Mahmoud ended one relation and saw them entering another relation. A slight crunch of hatred and disgust created a scope of new love switching the relation in each plot, in each character. Dr. Mahmoud pays gratitude to Hend for his unreasonable attitude, while Hend acts dry, half-way between regretting the loss of her boyfriend whom she left for his habit of smoking hash and taking Hend for granted. The shattered coach has a nervous breakdown and the recovery was not just physically but a quite spiritually. 

The relationship between Hend and coach advances with the passion of youngness – a tribute to life, a taste of love, the deliverance of a relation and an intimation of conscience. The old coach has no more annoyance towards life, as he realizes that life is all about feeling younger and happier, whatsoever happens. Hend sees her acting career growing in the limelight and also shortens distance with Tarek. The metallurgy of love and humanity changes its direction and impositions as life breathes after limbo.

After all, love doesn’t have to be technical to two bodies or souls or persons; it is much obliged to one heart and one soul itself.

Watch the trailer: Heads & Tails