Aamir Review: Counterfeit Cinema

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.