Island City and Pink steals the second half of 2016

-
Pinkmovieposter.jpg
Pink opens on a very interesting note on simultaneous/parallel actions of the protagonists and the antagonists driving back from one horrific night out. And that pretty much sets the pace of the film. The script takes time to build and by the time it has, created the mood and tenor to move to the next level, we are all quite clued on to what is unfolding.

The film picks up on an extremely important issue plaguing the society today, gender bias-ness and the problems of stereotypes that we often face or are witness too. And what is more paradoxical, those are often seen in the strata of the society where we perceive or probably take for granted as the educated souls. Single girls staying together, wearing liberal clothes or drinking socially or the North East adage are typical challenges faced in the country. Barring a few cities like Bombay or Calcutta, the rest of India pretty much lives in those cliches and that's what is sad, painful and disturbing.

I would tend to believe the film pretty much soars with this part of the social message. I would not know how much will it go down with the masses. A smirk or a smile or a laugh or probably some lessons to be learnt but do people take those messages back home. Do they address those issues when it comes to their own selves or perhaps not! And that to me is more questionable. We have been battling this gender related issues for long and trust me, if there is no way we can get our own house in order, it is all a blasphemy.

Coming back to the movie, the three girls have done justice to their defined characters. Perhaps the message in the film was so strong (to be conveyed) the three characters were the medium. And I will tend to believe Andrea Tariang's role was the most understated and nuanced. She did not get the histrionics bit, but her suppressed character told many a silent battle she had been fighting for long and perhaps this night out with the boys was the nadir. But that will be wrong to put down Pannu and Kulhari as both of them did their bit well. The strongest pivots to these characters had to be Piyush Mishra, Angad Bedi, Vijay Verma (the best amongst the lot), Raashul Tandon, Tushar Pandey and a brilliant Mamta Malik. There was Amitabh Bachchan too, but he seems to be limited by the range and that is where I have serious concerns, but yes he is the crowd and BO puller, so you have to give it to him.

Anirudha's last directorial outing, Buno Hash was a let down, after his critically acclaimed Antaheen(personally, I did not like both) and I think he gets his mojo back with this one. Delhi is captured very differently and I guess more and more filmmakers are looking at the layers Delhi is offering and that is quite novel (Lajpat Nagar with Vicky Donor, Old Delhi with Delhi 6, DU with umpteen number of films, West Delhi with Band Bajaa Baraat to name a few) and I am loving it. Do you know, Sarvpriya Vihar (the setting for the film) houses lawyers and would that be ironical to say? Music is spot on and the background score does the trick, the songs are nuanced. But, do not miss the end credits as it unfolds the beginning.

The other movie that steals 2016 is the underrated Island City. Three short stories inter connected to each other. Each story brings out the loneliness, sorority of the lonely women, the tragedy that hits a family with a single bread earner and they all are connected. Island city is an amazing take on the city  Bombay, which has never occurred to me, could have existed. The first of the plot delves into loneliness of the average citizen, the second is about longing that a family connects to a character in a fictional soap opera, an antithesis to the head of the family and finally the lonely girl in the city longing for love. The episodes all are interconnected and they will never be episodic therefore or in silos.

What stands out are the characters, Vinay, Tannsistha, Amruta Subhash and everybody else, where simply brilliant. Second, the sound and music and that I have not experienced in Hindi cinema in a very long time and finally the photography and cinematography. Brilliant, spot on and brings the Bombay as we have never seen and they add on to the narration, brilliant. The humour is dark and often under stated.

I think these are movies that takes years for cinema to give its due credit and will go in the annals of contemporary cinema along side Titthi and Ship of Theseus.

But watch Island City for its realistic take on the city and the loneliness that surrounds us all and Pink for some serious soul searching.                 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dhoom 3: Overrated, Over-hyped, and an over the top Aamir Khan

-
Image
Coming back to writing a piece after a very long time. I think about 3 months. Unfortunately, there was not a single film worth mention that released between now and September that is worth a shot. For that matter there is nothing in 2013 that is actually worth a mention. There were so MANY films and so much of hype and so much of marketing built around these films, but each one was a disappointment and perhaps a bigger one preceding the other. We come to that in a recap of 2013, probably as a next piece. But for now, it is Dhoom 3. What to write? What to say? Frame after frame it is Aamir Khan and not one but two, did I give out the suspense? Well nothing much in giving it away, as there is nothing at stake in the movie to give it away. YRF, Vijay Krishna Acharya, and everybody involved in the process of making the movie seems more enamored than anything else with the lead star. Makes you feel bad for Jai Dikshit and Ali. And as luck would have it, the only parts of the movie wh
Read more

Ramu Kaka, the family Physician, Kheer, Silk Gown et al...

-
Image
  Cinema is a medium to convey a message; message which are verbal or visual based. It has the power to alter narrative or perhaps the discourse too. In the 50's 60's and even more pronounced in the 70's and 80's film stars commanded a huge influence on the audience. Hair style, clothes and accessories were copied by audience blindly. The Sadhana Cut became a famous hairstyle or the bouffant of Asha Parekh or the Sharmila Tagore style eye liners; even the men folk were not left behind. The ear hiding hairstyle of Amitabh Bachchan or the bell bottom or the unbuttoned shirt (only the first 2-3 buttons) went on to be cult classics. But, this rage was/is actually a global phenomena. It happened across the world and it still continues to create a sense of dystopian world which audience are more than happy to lap up.  In more recent times, two Hindi films, Dil Chahta Hai and later Zindagi Na Mile Dobara went on to change the way how youth looked at lifestyle and travel. Infac
Read more

Buno Haansh: If you have read the story, don't go

-
Image
Like I said in the title, if you have the read the original, which I think came out in the last or last to last year, Sharodiya Shonkha, do not watch the film as it is a complete let down. But if you have not read the original by Samaresh Majumdar, the movie is worth a dekko. The way different characters starting from the protagonist Amal to the characters, Shohag, Rijula and even all sundry characters develop are no where close to the original. What further adds to the agony, the climax scene which has been altered keeping Dev's image into account, which is unfortunate. The film to put it simply lacks the desired drama and the suspense, which if one has read the book will understand. It looks like a narration currently and there are moments where the film falls in a trap of trying to do justice to the book and the creative license it wants to use. Perhaps, this trap always remain when one tries to adapt a story or a classic novel into a cinema format. Some of the classic n
Read more