The present decade has been the best for Hindi cinema in a long while. Nandita Das' Firaaq joins the list of outstanding débuts of the period.
Firaaq is a day in the life of Ahmedabad in the aftermath of the Gujarat carnage of 2002. An ensemble narrative, Firaaq is peopled with stories that happen to converge on a particular day, of the ones who return from what they presumed was an escape from the violence, and of the ones who prepare to forsake a city that has become unbearably persecutory.
An exploration of a sub-culture of survivors, and a prescribed indictment, Firaaq weaves intertwining tales of victims, mostly, and of their perpetrators; A young Muslim couple, Muneera (Shahana Goswami) and Hanif (Nawazuddin) returning to their ransacked home obsesses itself with attaching faces to a mob that might’ve gutted their home.
A 6 yrs old boy sheltered in a refugee camp desperately searches for his father.
A Gujarati housewife (Deepti Naval) atoning an all-consuming guilt of having refused sanctuary to a pleading Muslim woman, her husband (Paresh Rawal) who has participated in the pillage, and is now protecting his rapist younger brother.
An inter-faith couple (Sanjay Suri and Tisca Chopra) that is embarking on a move away from an Ahmedabad that is threatening their fragile co-existence.
An aged musician (Naseeruddin Shah) who’s defeated in his search for strength to endure inevitable hatred for the other, and his man-Friday (Raghuvir Yadav) who’s shielding the musician from the same.
Amongst its accomplishments, Firaaq is an example of superior direction of an inspired cast of performers. Special mention must be made of the youngest members hobnobbing with the stalwarts in the film – Shahana Goswami, Nawazuddin, and Sanjay Suri.
While all these few stories, culled from innumerable other scars, could’ve been independent of each other, Nandita Das and her co-writer Shuchi Kothari make them succinctly inter-dependent, and resultant on each other, in ways that are cathartic and poignant. Collaborative writing is known to be tricky; Firaaq's writing seems to be as novel as the end result is rewarding – the film was collabo-written by the writers over the Internet Telephony Service Skype. If that’s what sires enlightening cinema, so be it.
As far as the relevance of the film is concerned, I personally feel, as many cinematic articulations of the Gujarat carnage and its aftermath is welcome; to invoke the Mitscherlichs, “there is no moving beyond loss without some experience of mourning.”
Let there be healing, instead of an inability to mourn.
Every filmmaker seems to have a Devdas in him. Emir Kusturica has made two Devdases back to back, in 1989 (Time of the Gypsies) and 1993 (Arizona Dream). While Time of the GypsiesArizona Dream is a full-blooded recasting of the Devdas affezione, where Johnny Depp is torn between his love for Faye Dunaway’s Paro and Lili Taylor’s Chanda. What’s even more interesting is that Paro and Chanda live-out their loves under the same roof, as mother & step-daughter respectively. could be described as a (sort of) Devdas sans Chanda,
Films conjure their own reviews, unbearably enslaved, by default, to the reviewer’s viewing experience. Dev.D seems to have proved the influence it’s had on its reviewers, and more importantly, on its audience. With the choice of this present film, Anurag Kashyap has liberated film reviewing from having to be about recounting what the plot of the film is, as much as he engrossed himself in higher pursuits other than mere plot. In what is an unique situation for an Indian film, Dev.D’s audience already has a fair idea of what the film is about. It’s the re-imagining of Devdas that’s being looked-forward-to, and Anurag provides a heady load of imagination.
It’s amazing how we’ve been tricked to consider monogamy only in terms of sex and marriage. What about love? Can love be monogamous?
Anurag Kashyap’s 2nd greatest triumph with his Dev.D is the successful exploration of an idea of love itself; in what’s till recently considered an oxymoron, a love that could be non-monogamous. It’s not even in the proferring of a satisfactory reply to the question that the film’s triumph lies, but in the juxtaposition of love in terms of monogamy, or otherwise. In Dev.D, the protagonists Dev, Paro, and Chanda trade accusations of being a slut. At different times in their lives the characters are sluts of the accidental and aspirational types. But mostly, an entirely new category – love sluts.
We all have a Paro in our lives. Some of us, stupidly, make the mistake of marrying her/him, thus contradicting the existence of Paro, pitting Paro vs Paro. Let her be.
Who’s interested in a Chanda that’s already a Chanda? You want her/him to become Chanda for you. Kalki makes you fall in love with her Chanda, when she looks at you with delight, having picked a name & destiny for herself.
A Dev who knows he is a Dev is as boring as paid sex, and its myriad derivatives.That’s where Abhay Deol’s graceful internalised performance towers over all the superstar Devdases and their child-actor avatars, who seem to know from the opening of the film that they are embodying an apparition called Devdas. [PC Barua’s 1935 Bengali rendition is an exception. In the paraphrased words of dear Ashis Nandy, PC Barua is a filmmaker who shot 20 tigers and about 30 films]
Kamal Swarup’s Om-Dar-B-Dar has a Devdas prototype at its centre, who hasn’t even had the benefit of a Chanda experience, when he comes back to find his Paro having moved emotionally to a very far-off place from his life. But it is at the beginning of the film, when he’s just managed to tell his Paro of his L.O.V.E for her that the original Emosional Attyachar plays, in a surreal trance-like circumstance in flourescent-lit Ajmer. And what a tribute Anurag pays to grandmaster Kamal Swarup, choosing to set the nation’s current anthem whilst Paro is duping herself into marital bliss and her Dev deluding his stimuli drowned in vodka.
Music director Amit Trivedi elevates Anurag Kashyap-Rajeev Ravi duo’s psychedelia with as much swagger as Clint Mansell, Goran Bregovic, Shigeru Umebayashi lent for the films of Aronovski, Kusturica and Kar-Wai respectively. The completely slo-mo feat Nayan Tarse is the closest Indian cinema has come to the high poetry of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (Tony Leung-Maggie Cheung’s melancholy swaying set to Yumeji’s theme by Shigeru Umebayashi).
The Pantheon:
A young PC Barua embarked on a journey that was to pioneer early Indian cinema. Armoured with a letter of recommendation by the Nobel winner Rabindranath Tagore, PC Barua apprenticed at the Cinecitta Studios in Italy in the 1920s. Returning to Calcutta PC Barua directed himself as Saratbabu’s Devdas in 1935, before casting KL Saigal in the film’s hindi version (where PC Barua played Paro’s stepson).
Bang in the film’s beginning, a grown-up Paro tells Devdas of his being earmarked by his father to go away for further studies. Devdas promises his Paro that he shall Not Leave. Quick wipes reveal Devdas repeating his resolve to his mother, father & brother, but every member insisting on his having to leave. Devdas promises Paro that he’s staying back, come what may, when the film’s soundtrack plays ‘Pardesi Tuje Jaana Hi Padega’ (or was it Musafir Tuje Jaana Hi Padega). Incredible that a film made in 1935 employed as much restraint and invention when the rest of the studios in India at the time were busy with their mythologicals, recreating theatre on screen, and learning the musical ropes.
Subsequent versions of Devdases seem to emanate directly from the present version, maintaining an unbroken chain for decades. Bimal Roy who was the cinematographer of PC Barua’s Devdases went on to make his own version 20 years later. Similarly, Dev.D’s screenwriter Vikramaditya Motwane served as the award winning sound recordist of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas. Between PC Barua’s Pardesi Tuje Jaana Hi Padega to Anurag Kashyap’s Mahi Mennu Nahin Karna Pyar & Chanda’s prophetic choosing of her own kismat, Devdas has come a long meaningful way.
It takes supreme confidence in the screenplay’s writing for a director to even dream a structure such as the one used in Dev.D. Anurag Kashyap’s greatest triumph with Dev.D is his smuggling a world cinema vibe and sensibility into a mainstream Hindi film, and delivering Indian cinema to where it was originally intended by the early pioneers, before a small detour (of several decades) derailed the process.
P.S. #1
Every film mentioned here are my absolute all-time favorites. Of course, Bhansali’s Devdas, and to a lesser degree Bimal Roy’s, disqualify themselves.
P.S. #2
As luscious filmmaking as Dev.D could’ve easily turned into yet another opportunity lost to oblivion, but for the efforts of the film’s producers UTV SpotBoy (Vikas Behl, Rucha Pathak, Manish Hariprasad), who’re fast turning to be the place to go to with scripts that might not want its vision diluted.
P.S. #3
Watch Dev.D however you want, much like the service Chanda offers her customers, and makes them pay accordingly. You watch the film sober, you want to get smashed in exhilaration after the film. You watch the film with a buzz, you experience a film that was made for you in any case. Either ways you’re fucked, nicely. A loveless, a sexless, intoxication-less life is a cursed one, really, very violent. Suit your own fix, be it smoke or booze or spliff or snow, or all of the above alongwith dollops of love & sex.
As far as our audience goes, I can’t be sure of adulthood, but India definitely achieves its puberty with Dev.D. Thank you Mr. K, i always knew you to be a pusher. You seem to carry too many envelopes around, what do you have for breakfast?
WHEN THE VENERABLE Roger Ebert visits India, he will imagine he knows the name of almost every Indian woman — Latika; if Danny Boyle is to be believed, there are 26,283 Latikas in Mumbai alone.
Slumdog Millionaire opens with a multiple-choice question: “Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it? A: He cheated. B: He’s lucky. C: He’s genius. D: It is written.” With a device as smart as this — a set-up whose inevitable answer will turn out to be ‘written’ (or destined) — the film could well go on to be about pretty much anything before circling back in its finale to remind us that everything was predestined. A choice left out of the prologue could have been ‘Option A answers all questions’. Well, mostly.
A story the whole world already knows, Slumdog is, not unlike its Oscar co-contender Benjamin Button, a film deftly constructed with a series of flashbacks intercut with one of only two events that are played out in the present — the interrogation after which the film hurtles to the 20-millionrupee question and the lovers’ reunion. I wonder why, though, this present is set in 2006, as the title card indicates?
Although there have been numerous documentaries and oriental exotica woven before, Slumdog is the first Bollywood film by a foreign filmmaker. Scant criticism for the film in the West and copious amounts in India has accused it of being ‘typical Hollywood tripe’ and ‘nothing more than Bollywood masala’ respectively. How does Boyle manage to get accused of making both a Hollywood and a Bollywood film at the same time?
A clever conceit, Slumdog is a cinematic tour-de-force that employs a realistic portrayal of what is essentially an uplifting fantasy (Hollywood likes uplifting, and Bollywood thrives on fantasy fare). And the secret? ‘It is written’. Whether we like it or not, films need to be written. And when they aren’t, more often than not they become fodder for the next generation’s spoofs.
Danny Boyle is enjoying a Jamal-like fortune with his film; a billion Indians are rooting for Slumdog to sweep the Oscars. Come February 22, India’s rejoicing billion may insist that the next season of Kaun Banega Crorepati be played live — it’s much more fun the Slumdog way, with its attendant opportunities to scam the show. And also demand that the brilliant Anil Kapoor reprise the Amitabh-Shahrukh role. Jai Ho.
Original of an altered review, published in Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 33, Dated Aug 23, 2008.
A Punjabi film with an English title, ‘Singh is Kinng’ is Akshay Kumar’s coronation film as Bollywood’s king. Or so is the overt attempt.
Akshay Kumar plays Happy Singh, a bumbling trouble-maker for the denizens of his village in Punjab. As much as everybody in director Anees Bazmee-land is a caricature, be it the villages in Punjab, Mumbai, South Africa (‘Welcome’), Egypt or Australia, they are smart-enough to make decisions to propel the film forward, thenceforth existing for the sole purpose of showcasing stars’ talents for comedy, romance, dance & action.
The villagers expressly banish a pranky Happy Singh off to Australia (to bring back a mafia King) ridding themselves of his antics while they don’t seem to mind substituting another deaded villager (the mafia king) in his place who Happy Singh is entrusted with bringing back to the village.
Sure enough, Akshay Kumar’s Happy Singh reforms the desi mafia in Australia, pontificates the worth of family & do-gooding, finds a mother in Kiron Kher, dances with mother’s daughter (Katrina Kaif), woos her, & ultimately wins her for himself joining Snoop Dogg in the film’s end credits for a reiteration of being ‘The Kinng’.
It is difficult to distinguish the comedians in the film as every single character seems to have been asked to resort to comedy whenever they deem fit, and/or when their co-actors’ comedy isn’t working well-enough.
Akshay Kumar definitely is the star of the moment having delivered more consecutive hits than any other in the last couple of years. But in all his career, evidently, Akshay Kumar hasn’t dabbled with a rare entity (in Bollywood) called Good Cinema (or just Cinema, as opposed to pickture), where the canvas is as big as his stardom deems he deserve but at the same time entirely plausible, written (not gags invented on sets), aesthetic, & tasteful.
Rajinikanth's stardom is built on Modesty - the more he's modest on screen (about his achievements) bigger is the audience's reaction insisting his greatness. Akshay Kumar sems to be treading a similar path; he doesn't feature in any of the action sequences, because he doesn't have to - people's memory of him as an action star is enough to fill-in, and enjoy the modest darling as lovable, desirable, touching, oh-so-cute!
Am reminded of the Golda Meir quote, "Don't be modest. You aren't that great." Akshay Kumar, with his obvious magical powers on screen, proves modesty to be the preserve of 'The Arrived'. He also proves that the films of the incumbent kings of Bollywood are as good or as bad as the ones he’s anointed his kingdom on, depending on one’s nostalgia-quotient.
Little do our Bollywood stars need be told that investing in well-crafted scripts and films would as surely account for the present generation's future nostalgia too.
Rajkumar Gupta: “Kaun Kehta Hain Ki Aadmi Apni Kismat Khud Likhta Hain?” thani: “Kismat agar khud likh sakte, to usey kismat kyon kehte!”
Anurag Kashyap is India's most provocative filmmaker. With his filmmaking, he creates avenues for scores of cinephiles to dream their cinematic dreams, and when that's not satisfactorily accomplished he angers them enough to want to better his offending efforts. That is, when the said cinephile does not resort to the shortest possible route to his directorial debut - namely the remake.
It is to Rajkumar Gupta's credit, and to the film's superior craftmanship, that i refer to his debut feature Aamir as cinema. Nevertheless, a COUNTERFEIT one, if you know what i mean. The password is Cavite. I might as well review Cavite, and nobody would recognize the difference. To be fair to the nobody, in as many words, Aamir is a copy of Cavite [pronounced 'ka-vi-th-ey].
Of course, one could attempt to girdle-up BALLS to say, that the film you're remaking is infinitely topical to the culture & society that you're setting-it in, than the original source you've borrowed from. But you don't say it. What you do say, in its stead, is that it is indeed a film 'written and directed' by Rajkumar Gupta. Actually, it need not be as traumatizing to be remaking a film that you thought makes good-enough fodder for your first feature. But the fuck-up in India is, owing to it's overbearing mediocrity, remaking a film, is a terminal disease, as worse as any that plagues our country. Because remakes have successfully rendered Indian filmmaking spineless, un-audacious, & impotent.
I want to watch a chase in a contemporary Indian film that doesn’t, with the exception of Black Friday, employ OST’s from either The Untouchables, Requiem for a Dream, or Kill Bill. Also, I do intend to invite a friend, Raja Sen, to subject him to a looped playing of the Summer, Winter & Hope Overture tracks from a Clint Mansell composed OST for Darren Aronovsky's Requiem for a Dream, for saying what he has about the Aamir Theme track that's resorted to to bail the makers out of the quagmire they ventured in remaking an indie-spirited film to a film that refuses to bother with the very reason the original film chose the protagonist as the victim.
In Cavite, a 2005 Philippines film written & directed by the film’s lead actor (Ian Gamazon) and it’s DOP (Neill Dela Llana), the protagonist Adam is terrorized into carrying-out a terror attack for a very specific reason. The makers of Aamir, probably to obfuscate the concentration of the counterfeiting, unwisely leave-out the mechanics that went into the choice-making of a victim. Watching Aamir one would wonder as to why Rajeev Khandelwal’s Aamir Ali was randomly chosen when any of the mastermind's cronies (who’re located ubiquitously close to Aamir’s constant re-location) could’ve carried-out, much more skillfully & efficiently, their desired outcome.
Rajeev Khandelwal’s feature debut, as the desperate Aamir Ali, deserves all the praise he’s receiving. It's a pleasure, and a filmmaker’s dream I’d imagine, to work with an actor who elicits the amount of honesty that Rajeev does. It’s a debut that dwarfs the other 5; Rajkumar Gupta as Director, Alphonse Roy as DOP, Anurag Kashyap as Creative Producer, Amit Trivedi as Music & Background Composer, and UTV’s indie wing UTV SPOTBOY as Producer. It is not in the execution (that’s commendably impeccable) but in the choice of having to bear an un-repayable debt, in the Indian context, owed to Cavite that the latter’s (latter 5) debuts are a-tainted.
One small (thani) review seldom dents the vast multitude of raves that are pouring-in. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aamir’s post-opening-weekend-publicity screams a Black Fridayed tag line, from one of the erstwhile non-believers. For a film to be Black Fridayed is to have it's title successfully changed [Black Friday – Do Yourself a Favour (Taran Adarsh)]. Witnessing Post-Bheja Fry developments, remakes don’t seem to hurt any of the remakers. Unfairly, it’s the audience that gets dumbed-down into celebrating the next half-decent original fare that any bloke delivers, further lowering our cinematic aspirations.
Original Posting and Comments ______________________________________ “India embraces the cinema of the whole world…In a future issue, I shall show why India is the creation of the whole world.” Jean-Luc Godard
It has been 14 long years since an Indian Film has made the Competition Selection of the Cannes International Film Festival. And that particular Competition Selection, Shaji Karun’s second feature Swaham (1994), happens to be the only instance for the decade of the 90s. Around the time, some of Shaji Karun’s well wishers, prompted by Andrew Robinson’s comparison of the debut features, pompously declared that “there are only two Indian films - Pather Panchali (1955) & Piravi (1988). Period.” What is common to both the films, & the probable reason for the latter film’s exaltation, is a certain institution that has consistently, for the last six decades, managed to play world cinema’s official conscience-keeper & harbinger of the evolution of cinema itself - the Cannes International Film Festival. Satyajit Ray’s debut feature Pather Panchali (1955) was showcased at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, in the Competition section where the film won the Best Human Document Award, while Shaji Karun’s debut, Piravi, made in 1988, premiered at Cannes 1989 in the Un Certain Regard category & walked away with the Camera D’Or Special Mention (for Best First film).
With Pather Panchali’s selection to Participate in the Competition section, & the subsequent feting of the film, Satyajit Ray discovered Cannes Film Festival for Indian Cinema, and consequently, the Cannes International Film Festival discovered Indian Cinema for the world. Not at all the case that Cannes was unaware of Indian Cinema before 1956; in fact 1950s is the most prolific decade as far as Indian films’ presence in the Cannes Competition section goes. India had entries in every single year of the Festival in the 1950s (see Appendix 1). But what distinguishes Satyajit Ray, & his Pather Panchali, is not much unlike a reading of Orson Welles’, & the Nouvelle Vague’s, importance in the cinematic pantheon. Film practitioners, before Welles debuted on the marquee, were born before the invention of cinema. They practically discovered the medium, & continually yearned to evolve the medium as they went along. Whereas, Orson Welles had a small archive of cinema to contend-with, be aware of, re-search, & partake to be influenced-by. The same is true of the Young Turks of the Nouvelle Vague who indentured at the Cinematheques, & Film-Clubs, while sharpening their cinematic skills analyzing and critiquing cinema of their times.
Indian cinema’s beginnings were marked with Mythologicals, & increasingly pre-occupied with the Nationalist Movement under the British Colonial government. This pre-occupation translated into having to make seemingly non-offending films that might get strangulated at the British Censors. It was only with the post-independent filmmakers that Indian Cinema was liberated from having to make socially relevant films under the guise of, what was considered harmless, Mythologicals. Satyajit Ray came from an awareness of world cinema, & its latest achievements, during his travels abroad & with his proximity with the Renoir-helmed The River in & around Calcutta. But filmmakers before Satyajit Ray aspired to belong to the mainstream that was brewing in the country’s commercial capital of Bombay.
Abruptly, with Satyajit Ray’s subsequent films, after the spectacular debut of Pather Panchali, Indian Cinema’s & Cannes Festival’s courtship went through troubled times. Ray chose to showcase his films at the other, equally prestigious, film festivals of Venice and Berlin where he consistently won Top Prizes through the rest of his illustrious career. This period in the 60s also coincided with the inception of India’s premier Film School, the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), in Pune. FTII graduates, over the years, were successfully able to bring into being the country’s New Cinema. Whatever went wrong, these films hardly managed to garner international film community’s attention. Does this development question its makers’ aspiration itself, or if it was a gross misreading of the barometer of cinematic acceptance, somebody need answer someday. It is no surprise that the first generation of New Indian Cinema filmmakers were mentored by Ray’s contemporary Ritwik Ghatak, who himself went un-noticed for his contribution during his lifetime. It is ironical, on the part of the Cannes Film Festival, that posthumous retrospectives of Ritwik Ghatak & Gurudutt adore the Cannes sidebar screens while no interest was shown in them when they came out of the times these films were articulating. To exaggerate, Cannes Film Festival has about 200 awards up for grabs annually, instituted in the names of prominent filmmakers from around the globe. But none, amongst the multitude of prizes, happen to exist in an Indian Filmmaker’s honor.
It is even more surprising, again on the part of the Cannes Film Festival, of the desperate courting of Bollywood in the last few years, purely as a cosmetic value for their sidebar events, as if to threaten that this insult shall be meted out until such time we practice a genre of films we seem to be suspect at - Truly Brilliant Films. Not to be left out, Bollywood has equally been requiting of Cannes’ gesture by showing-up for the events and misleading an already irresponsible Indian Media whose self-image hasn’t warranted that it demand, encourage, & appreciate raising the bar for Indian cinema.
I shall not endeavour with plausible excuses, on behalf of either the festival or Indian cinema. But what I shall, is pick 3 films that were to have been flirted-with vigorously by the festival in question, & at any rate by a conscientious cinema-seeking audience, that were not to be;
1. Devdas, 1935 PC Barua’s original Bengali version, with the director playing the lead, & one Mr. Bimal Roy serving as Assistant Cameraman. 2. Om-D-B-Dar, 1988 Kamal Swarup’s audacious filmmaking, of a childhood reminisced & a future waxed prophetic. 3. Kaalabhirati, 1989 Amitabh Chakraborty’s (in collaboration with DOP Sashikanth Ananthacharya) experimental deliberation, (cinematic) magic-making.
Godard shall be invoked again, as he shall also not go unblamed. It is, in a sense, all his fault. In his days as a film critic, Jean-Luc Godard, while preparing for his first feature A Bout de Souffle, in June 1959 wrote a piece for the Cahiers du Cinema magazine (issue # 96) titled ‘note on India’. He starts the piece by saying “pending a more detailed analysis” he would suffice it with passwords, and ends the piece by declaring, “India embraces the cinema of the whole world” and that “In a future issue, I shall show why India is the creation of the whole world.” I wish Godard did write, in the much-promised ‘future issue’, about the subject that unfortunately was never broached again.
I doubly wish Godard were talking about India (Indian Cinema) as opposed to what he actually was talking about - Roberto Rossellini’s acclaimed 1958 feature India, set in the country of the same name.
Appendix 1 - Complete list of Indian entries in the Cannes Competition section: 1. 1946: Neecha Nagar (1946) - Chetan Anand 2. 1952: Amar Bhoopali (1951) – V. Shantaram 3. 1953: Awaara (1951) - Raj Kapoor 4. 1954: Do Bigha Zameen (1953) - Bimal Roy 5. 1954: Mayurpankh (1954) - Kishore Sahu 6. 1955: Biraj Bahu (1954) - Bimal Roy 7. 1955: Boot Polish (1954) - Prakash Arora 8. 1956: Pather Panchali (1955) - Satyajit Ray 9. 1956: Shevgyachya Shenga (1955) - Shantaram Athavale 10. 1957: Gotoma the Buddha (1956) - Rajbans Khanna 11. 1958: Parash Pathar (1958) - Satyajit Ray 12. 1958: Pardesi (1957) – K. A. Abbas; Vasili Pronin 13. 1959: Lajwanti (1958) - Narendra Suri 14. 1960: Sujata (1959) - Bimal Roy 15. 1962: Devi (1960) - Satyajit Ray 16. 1964: Mujhe Jeene Do (1963) - Moni Bhattacharjee 17. 1974: Garam Hawa (1973) - M.S. Sathyu 18. 1976: Nishaant (1975) - Shyam Benegal 19. 1980: Ek Din Pratidin (1979) - Mrinal Sen 20. 1983: Kharij (1982) - Mrinal Sen 21. 1984: Ghare-Baire (1984) - Satyajit Ray 22. 1986: Genesis (1986) - Mrinal Sen 23. 1994: Swaham (1994) - Shaji N. Karun
Appendix 2 - Complete list of Indian Award Winners at Cannes: 1946: Neecha Nagar (1946, Chetan Anand) - Joint Festival Top Prize of Grand Prix du Festival International du Film 1954: Do Bigha Zameen (1953, Bimal Roy) –(Joint) International Prize 1955: Boot Polish (1954, Prakash Arora) - Naaz (Special mention to a child actress) 1956: Pather Panchali (1955, Satyajit Ray)- Best Human Document OCIC Award - Special Mention 1957: Gotoma the Buddha (1956, Rajbans Khanna) – Best Director (Special Mention) 1983: Kharij (1982, Mrinal Sen) - Jury Prize (Cannes’ 3rd top prize) 1988: Salaam Bombay! (1988, Mira Nair) - Golden Camera (Best Debut Feature) Audience Award 1989: Piravi (1988, Shaji N. Karun) - Golden Camera - Special Mention (Joint Winner) 1991: Sam & Me (1991, Deepa Mehta) - Golden Camera - Special Mention (presented as a Canadian film)] 1998: The Sheep Thief (1997, Asif Kapadia) - Cinefondation Award (2nd prize, Short Film)1999: Marana Simhasanam (1999, Murali Nair) - Golden Camera (Best Debut Feature) 2002: A Very Very Silent Film (2001, Manish Jha) - Best Short Film (Joint Winner) 2006: Printed Rainbow (2006, Gitanjali Rao) - Kodak Short Film Award Young Critics Award (Joint Winner) Small Golden Rail
Appendix 3 - Complete list of India on the Cannes Jury: 1958: Krishna Riboud (India) (short films); Jury President: Marcel Achard 1982: Mrinal Sen Jury President: Giorgio Strehler 1990: Mira Nair Jury President: Bernado Bertolucci 2000: Arundhati Roy Jury President: Luc Besson 2003: Aishwarya Rai Jury President: Patrice Chereau 2005: Nandita Das Jury President: Emir Kusturica
Here's a review of the recently released Big-Budget Bollywood film Tashan, originally published in Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 18, Dated May 10, 2008 __________________________________________ OVERSEXED, UNDERAGED These Bollywood big-budget affairs like Tashan can't distinguish film scenes from their spoofs at award ceremonies, writes THANI
TASHAN’S WRITER-DIRECTOR Vijay Krishna Acharya says, “Writer F Scott Fitzgerald once said, ‘You don’t write to say something; you write when you have something to say.’ I am a staunch believer in those words.” While Acharya seems to have done terrible justice to the craft of writing with the Dhoom films, here he does much superior injustice to direction. Bad writing begets bad films.
Saif Ali Khan plays a call centre accent-trainer who’s hired to work on gangster Anil Kapoor’s English. Kareena Kapoor plays Anil Kapoor’s secretary of sorts, who first traps Saif in love, then elopes with 25 crores of Anil Kapoor’s booty. This particular predicament, necessitates the existence of Akshay Kumar’s wannabe shooter who’s hired to recover stolen money from the lassie-on-the-run. Akshay’s bait-cum-guide on the road trip is Saif, who naively made plans with the femme fatale. Fair enough. Interesting even, for a film’s premise. But it is the indifferent manner in which Tashan’s makers go about the same that renders it terribly irritating.
Soon enough, the twosome of Saif and Akshay find Kareena and bond-into a threesome over the course of a ridiculous goof-ball journey before they eventually are ready to smokeout baddie Anil Kapoor, if only to redeem their own bad lives.
A particularly tasteless sequence from Tashan has Kareena Kapoor teasing Akshay Kumar’s Kanpur-thug by making him dry her undergarments, and subsequently getting Saif ’s accent-trainer to playact a rape of herself. All this, and an extended song and dance too, transpire as the stars appear in various stages of undress.
Bollywood, when it comes to representation of sex, continues to be like an over-sexed kid with an underaged demeanor — awkward, fearful, vulgar, guilty and covert. These Bollywood big-budget affairs can’t seem to distinguish film scenes from their spoofs at award ceremonies.
Watching Tashan is like watching Tashan, its sequel, and its prequel — all three films poorly written, executed and enacted. Tashan culminates with an overlong action sequence picturised on sets straight out of Roberto Rodrigues’ Once Upon a Time in Mexico. The sequel, Tashan 2, is about recovering money for the baddie, even though the idea seems to have been finishing him off. And the prequel, Tashan 3, consists of Akshay’s and Kareena’s teenage love story, in anonymity.
Akshay Kumar’s brief seems to have been to act like Akshay Kumar as portrayed by Southern star Vikram; Saif ’s to play Saif from the previous decade; Anil Kapoor’s to emulate Amitabh Bachchan from Aag, and Kareena’s to continue acting like her look-alikes, Paris Hilton and Dani Woodward.
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