Lock down films and the story thereafter...

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 What I sense is that as Churchill said, every crisis has a opportunity. And the pandemic and the resultant lock down threw one down to some of us. A lot of we did spend time re-skilling ourselves with new things. But a film aficionado in me decided to make the best of this time with watching a lot of film. As the OTT platform went ballistic with a whole set of new releases but I guess it was all a problem of plenty and more importantly none of it was worth watching. Locked up at home between 24th March till about today (well in a semi-lockdown state perhaps) I can safely conclude about a film and a series which stayed on with me. But first the film; Kamyaab. Written and directed by Hardik Mehta (of Amdavad ma famous fame)it is a standout film of this year. Its a pity the film could not have a proper big screen time as the pandemic just about timed itself when the film saw a theatrical release. It soon circumvented into the OTT platform (Netflix). What stands to me; classic film making with a brilliant screenplay to boot. Often we have seen the end gets messed up and Hardik here is spot on as he beautifully ends the film with a dark and disturbing message. And yes, Sanjay Mishra's brilliance is written all throughout. It is quite strange that he has never taken himself too seriously but when he has, these gems get produced. The best scenes are the pain, pangs, yearnings and all of it gets dissolved so well in the evening over a bottle of his favorite drink to water it off. Deepak Dobriyal, unfortunately did not have much to do in a role where he had to literally help our "hero" to blend into the role. Infact the rest of the star cast pretty much slips in their caveat easily to help highlight the brilliance of Sanjay Mishra. What it seemed was; Hardik Mehta had literally had Sanjay Mishra cut out for the role from the inception. One also has to give a big shout out to Red Chillies and Drishyam for believing in the project and lending support to the project. 

The other interesting take this lockdown has been the brilliant Pataal Lok. But before Pataal Lok, a quick word on the extremely riveting series from where Pataal Lok is inspired; The Wire. The Wire debuted on HBO in 2002 and ran for 5 seasons. When it debuted, there wasn't much fan base that it created. But The Wire over the years has created a following of its own with three things to my mind. The first, an exceptional writing and screenplay, the second Baltimore the city and the people of the city and the third it never tries to conclude. The actors are amazing from the leads like Dominic West, Idris Elba, Sonja Sohn to the string of newbies who are often from Baltimore. The feel of the series comes out from the themes of each of the five season; drugs, blue collar workers at the port, politics, school education, and media. My personal favourite was season 2 and 4 but the remaining season were immensely mesmerizing too. Shot on real locations with fast action cuts to bring in a disjointed feel to the series, it thrives on a lot of jump cuts and close actions shots. Watch it on Hotstar for those who missed it. 

Pataal lok draws heavily from The Wire. For one it highlights Chitrakoot the city with a seedy underbelly thats covered on top with the religious epitaph. Second, the lead protagonist, a brilliant Jaideep Ahlawat was never really in the fray and there was never winning the race (he was merely trying to be a hero to his son) and third the system which will find its own way like a river which gets drawn to the ocean. Shot over two timelines and with a host of characters who are all brilliant, the success of Pataal Lok is because of excellent writing and a taut screenplay. Each character has its moments and there are no real heroes at the end. Like The Wire, Media, politics, and police all come together to a crescendo, drumming the falsehood of patriotism or duty or going out of the way to serve the services (now where have we seen and heard that). Amazon Prime was brave enough to invest in the show and effort is so visible. Every piece of acting is spot on and even the scene where Haathi Ram's son is being pulled over and thrashed by the goons, one of them simply has to showcase his bulked up muscles and keeping mixing his protein shake. And that was it. But the scene just gets heightened up.            

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