The Australian Festival of Travel Writing wrapped up last night after three days of fantastic and interesting panel discussions and workshops. I was invited to represent our blog to discuss ‘Bollywood Stories and Contemporary Indian Cool’.
Our panel moderator Roanna Gonsalves was charming and elegant, and made the panel all feel at ease. She injected some style into proceedings, wearing a beautiful blue and cream sari that contrasted with the Melbourne monochrome wardrobe. I will admit I googled her before we met and I was very impressed by her writing. Go look at her site.
Shalini Akhilshared some moving and funny reminiscences of how Bollywood touched on many ‘firsts’ in her life, including her first time going to the cinema by herself. What was the film that made such a mark on her life? Surakksha. Still not clear? Well, Gunmaster G9 may ring a bell. Here is a clip Shalini thoughtfully sent me afterwards:
Mitu Bhowmick-Lange gave the audience a quick history of Hindi cinema, how it has changed and the development of stories set overseas that reflect the NRI experience. She ended with a song filmed in Melbourne, My Dil Goes Mmmm from Salaam Namaste, which Mitu also line produced.
And I have no idea what I said. It was lovely to look at the audience and see Heather and other friends sitting there nodding emphatically at everything I mentioned, but that’s what great friends do. Thanks guys! I blathered on but I did manage to get 3 short clips of a minute or so each into my presentation. I really wanted to show why masala films have had such an impact on Heather and me and why we love to watch them. The audience seemed particularly taken with the South Indian film clips, and we may have a few more Magadheera converts! So what did I woo them with?
Helen!
MAGADHEERA!
Rajni!
The organisers were fabulous and really set me at ease, and Heather and I got some very nice comments afterwards. It was a fun thing to do, and I am delighted that we were asked to participate.
What a huge weekend! Diwali festivals happening all over town, Spring Racing is underway and to top it off we had another Adventure Without Subtitles. Melbourne is a great place to live at times like this!
So off to Baava at the newly christened India Talkies cinema.
We think this is a film that will improve greatly with access to subtitles, however there were many things to enjoy regardless.
The first half opens and sets up the lead characters- Siddharth as Veera and Praneetha as Varalakshmi. It becomes clear that Veerababu is a hapless lad, causing mayhem in his wake. We wondered if perhaps he was the idiot in search of the right village as he seemed to have the knack for doing nothing right. The village residents tried to banish him, his parents despaired of him. Varalakshmi on the other hand is the golden child of a well-to-do family, and is a ball of energy and fun.
That took a few minutes to establish, and yet it is basically the whole story of the first half. The dialogues were clearly hilarious, but there was no character development or drama so it seemed very slow to us non-Telugu speakers. This is where we think the subtitles will make the first half more entertaining.
But the songs are awesome on screen. The picturisation, the choreography and the music are so well meshed and make sense within the plot. We read Siddharth’s complaints on Twitter about the dances, but he looks like he is having a ball. Perhaps that was just some great acting, but we had a ball too. And really, Sid rocked the half sari and did a very creditable snake dance.
So back to the story. There is a long and (to us) confusing subplot about a family feud and the repercussions at the local temple. Varalakshmi realises that Veerababu is the boy who fell in love with her when they were schoolchildren, and falls in love with him too.
Meanwhile her family are planning on marrying her off to the very tall and very creepy Ramana, played by Vijay Samrat in a really strong performance that doesn’t hold back on the sleaze. Drama is building – Veerababu and Varalakshmi marry secretly. She returns to her home until the time is right. After a nasty confrontation with Varalakshmi’s family (the feud subplot again – it turns out she is his cousin) Veera’s father dies, and Veera goes to reclaim his bride and assert his rights. It was all getting really interesting. So Ramana who by now knows she is secretly married kidnaps Varalakshmi and there is only one way to settle this.
The ending was just silly, and not at all dramatic. We don’t want to tell all, but will give you a hint – they should have had Phil Liggett doing the commentary.
We loved, really loved, the songs on the big screen. The cinematography is just stunning and makes the most of every scene. The lighting and colours were just perfect – things looked sun bleached and warm, with beautifully intense hues to accent the scenes. The production design overall was a real plus.
Praneetha was very good as the sparky Varalakshmi. Her entrance (to Ring Ringa from Arya 2) was just fantastic and her dancing was so much fun to watch we just wanted to join in! Siddharth was full of energy, sometimes maybe too much, but gave it everything. His scenes with his friends and Varalakshmi showcased his cheeky smile and flirtatious eyes and the emotional scenes with his family let him use a bit more of his dramatic range. Brahmi and Ali did their thing and got lots of laughs. We did like the fact that we have to see the bald spot to verify that it really truly is Brahmi. And the guys who played… well the guys in the village who were Veera’s friends were lots of fun. Extra special bonus points for having Chiru appear on screen during a scene set in a cinema!
We have the feeling that the film would be much improved with a better plot structure and a few edits (as well as a much better climax scene) but have to reserve judgement til the DVD is available.
Geraftaar is not just a simple tale of two brothers separated at birth as this film manages to incorporate almost every Hindi film cliché. There is the long suffering mother, a significant song, brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, a significant necklace and to top it all off death by bulldozer. As if that wasn’t enough we have not one, not two, but three heroes. Kamal Hassan, Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikanth appear together although unfortunately not all on screen at the same time.
Karan Kumar Khanna is a brat of a child, but still doesn’t deserve to be framed for his father’s murder. Adding to his misery, the real killers convince him that he may have been responsible. Nirupa Roy, in true filmi Ma style, instantly believes that he did indeed kill his father. Karan runs away and tries to kill himself.
This allows his brother Kishan to grow up free from his teasing at least. Kishan grows up into Kamal Hassan. Working as a stuntman in the film industry he has big dreams of making it as a hero but struggles to get paid the basic rate for his work.
His personal life is no more successful. After a rather unpromising start, he finally marries the unbelievably spoilt and self-centred Anuradha. Anu is played by Poonam Dhillon, who does a very good job of making her character initially unappealing.
Back to those clichés! Anu’s brother is a gangster and is involved with a number of shady businessmen, who were also responsible for the death of our heroes’ father. They devise a plot to frame Kishan for the murder of his dancer friend Lucy, (but unfortunately not before she does a really bad version of flashdance), and he ends up in jail. Coincidence rules and thanks to that significant song he manages to find Karan, although he doesn’t know who Karan is.
Karan (now the much taller and much more serious Amitabh Bachchan) explains why he is in prison though a series of flashbacks that pick up from his failed suicide attempt. We learn that he was found by a Muslim boy, and taken in by him and his mother. Both boys grew up to be police inspectors, but Hussein (Rajnikanth) was killed by Vijay, the police commissioner’s son. Karan is in love with Vijay’s sister Geeta, played by Madhavi in a role that involves quite a bit of fisticuffs! So we have a symmetrical arrangement of two good(ish) girls who both have evil brothers plotting against our heroes who are long-lost-brothers. There are various jail breaks, song breaks, court dramas, deaths by bulldozer (yes, more than one) and the inevitable family reunion, so that all ends well.
There are some great things about this film. Inspector Geeta gets to join in for a lot of the fight scenes and does a really good job. Rajnikanth is excellent as the cigarette tossing Inspector Hussein and manages a suitably dramatic and filmi ending – defiantly smoking his cigarette to the bitter end.
The gang are the comedy relief and manage some funny moments in their convoluted plans. Kader Khan has a really insane moustache, and is clearly the head villain as he has a talking skull that gives him advice!
The scenes of Karan and Kishan singing and wandering around what appears to be a very nice open-plan prison are well done and the drama of their meeting is well handled.
The character of Anu is initially unlikeable and shows no empathy for anyone. She tricks Kishan into believing she loves him (and his Ma) and then humiliates him in front of her friends — all because she couldn’t stand the idea that he wasn’t interested in her. In revenge, he insists on marrying her before sending Anu back to her brother’s house so she can be trained to be a worthy bride. This deception on both sides leaves Kishan’s Ma in hospital as she crumbles under the weight of so much bizarre behaviour. Anu has an epiphany and magically morphs into the perfect wife, praying to die before Kishan and wait for him in the afterlife.
Neither of the female leads show any regret about their brothers – either for the life they lead or when they both suffer the consequences for their wrong-doing. Geeta initially tries to reason with her brother Vijay, but doesn’t seem at all happy to find that reports of his death were premature. Anu is shown vowing to cast aside her other relationships and accept Kishan as her husband but that was part of her deception so it wasn’t clear if she decided a vow was a vow, or if some other change of heart took place. The rest of the film is dedicated to family so this lack of feeling from the sisters towards their respective brothers did seem odd.
Kamal Hassan turns in a very good performance as Kishan but is upstaged by Amitabh in the second half. The two heroines do what they do, but don’t really have much to work with although they both get to participate in the action in the final scenes. Nirupa Roy with her trademark knuckle bite is once again the dramatic filmi mother. The music by Bappi Lahiri leans heavily towards disco – this was filmed in 1985 – but the significant song Aana Jaana Laga Rahega is lovely and sung beautifully by Shabbir Kumar and Bappi Lahiri himself. Kader Khan, Ranjeet and Shakti Kapoor play their usual stock characters and once again reap the benefit of a well funded wardrobe department. The fight scenes are very amusing. Although sped up to a ridiculous degree they still look quite leisurely. Perhaps the fights composer, credited as Judo Rathnam, was really a tai chi expert.
Heather says: I started this film a few times before I finally managed to watch it to the end. I find the first half drags, and the character of Anu was so annoying that I ended up shouting at the screen. But the whole tempo of the film changed at the appearance of Amitabh and Rajnikanth, so it was well worth making it to the second half – thank-you Temple for insisting I finish it! Rajni steals every scene he is in. Despite the fact that this is a special appearance with only a small role, he made the most of every second and I loved every single one of them! Amitabh was overly dramatic which made him somewhat more comic than I think was intended, but seemed to fit the general feel of the film. I couldn’t really take death by bulldozer seriously and spent most of the film laughing at the melodrama of it all. When I wasn’t getting annoyed by Anu at any rate. I enjoyed the songs and thought that the comedy track was well written in, and had some very funny moments. I have the feeling they couldn’t decide if this was meant to be a drama, a comedy or an action film, but instead of adding everything to make it full masala it just ended up switching from one style to the other and was just that little bit less satisfying. That little bit of Rajni helped make it more palatable. This film gets 3 stars from me.
Temple says: I agree with Heather that the director couldn’t quite decide how to spread out the masala ingredients in Geraftaar—so I think they decided Kamal Hassan got the comedy (mostly), Amitabh took drama and Rajnikanth was the action man. Which made for an uneven, albeit wildly entertaining, film. Bulldozers are not a weapon for the spontaneous killer, so the build up to get to the death by moving equipment was overly complicated and really made the film drag. And how some of the victims didn’t see it coming is just beyond me. The three heroes did an excellent job, especially Amitabh and Rajni as their roles had more substance and, I can’t believe I am going to use this word in relation to this film, logic. The heroines were OK for their under-written and sketchy roles and Madhavi looked like she was right into the biffo in the final scenes. I do have to give an extra cheer for Kamal Hassan’s dancing duel in his featured song. Its worth seeing Geraftaar just for the star cast. It’s a bit of a chore to hang in there til the action kicks in, but it is worth it. I give this 3 and 1/2 stars. It gets extra for the skull with glowing eyes and for Kamal Hassan’s dancing.
Cinema Chaat 