Soodhu Kavvum

Vijay Sethupathy is not a great actor. Or to be fair, he hasn’t yet been offered meaty roles to showcase his talent. But what is commendable is his choice of films. Much like the earlier version of Abhay Deol in Hindi films, Vijay Sethupathy tries to punch above his weight with the quirkiness of first time directors and their interesting – even if lacking in execution – subjects. Pizza, Naduvala Konjam Pakkatha Kanum weren’t great films but they had the novelty factor and an earnest indie blood within them and Soodhu Kavvum joins that very list.

Soodhu Kavvum directed by Nalan Kumarasamy is about three slackers and a self-confessed small time kidnapper and his imaginary friend. If there is one thing that Soodhu Kavvum gets right, it is the depiction of these slackers, their daily tedium and attempted misadventures. There is a thin line between making the audience abhor such characterization and making them invest in them and this film does the latter admirably with great staging and conversation (and some TR posters). Now this is the kind of talent that Rajesh (of Siva Manasula Sakthi and Boss Engira Bhaskaran fame) should kill to possess. But then that’s another debate.

In addition to being a slacker film, Soodhu Kavvum also dips it legs briefly across genres. It has noir undertones with all the stylized crime and background score (which was terrific), a B-movie feel with tons of unexplained acts and a deus ex machina resolution with even the yellowish natural lighting for the interiors and the bright colors of cars and clothes contributing to the look and feel of the film. Not everything is done well or in a complete manner though. It gets inconsistent after a point and most of second half is directionless and just a sequence of montages put together lazily but the leads keep you interested enough.

The seeming twist with the imaginary girlfriend plays out only for two scenes and regrettably so. The way it is introduced, with her sort of squatting behind Das and therefore eclipsed is one of the many commendable visual gags in the film. It’s a brilliantly sly conceit, to treat that character as the motivator and/or the conscience keeper. There is wonderful potential here to keep it going at least till the interval point. I admit I haven’t thought this through but that just sounds like a better film. Another wasted potential is as much as the character was intriguing and did not come across needless, once she is done away with there is no hole whatsoever. It’s almost like she did not exist [sic]. Well. I expected some sort of a change in the thoughts and actions of Das (Vijay Sethupathi) after her jettison. This should have been huge and if it was intended, it lacked a bomb in execution.

True to its title, every character – good or bad – is sucked into a web of evil one way or another. The reluctant participant who loses his job joins in due to desperation. The politician’s son cannot stand his do-gooder dad and devises his own plans to eliminate the latter. The small time kidnapping syndicate, ill-advised, goes in for retirement plans when they are on top. The psycho cop who does his job in questionable ways is delivered his comeuppance. Pack into this some not-so-heady messages (they thankfully don’t come across like that) about politics not being a field for the good. Also note how the good minister walks through the metal detector at the party office entrance three times in all – it beeps twice when he is empty-handed but does not when passing with crores of money in hand. Must check this.

One sure winner here is Santosh Narayan with his music and background score. The songs are also used intelligently and the background score is simply outstanding in several scenes. The superb scene where Das takes the cash from the banker dad and walks out is a standout. Ellam Kadandhu Pogumada is a bonafide masterpiece and the kidnapping and chase montages won’t work without a score of this quality.

Soodhu Kavvum may not be the zeitgeist force it is touted to be but it is one solid debut. More than stifling the modest achievements of the film it’ll prove to be more prudent to celebrate it as an indie success and a sign of better things to come for the love of cinema. I may not be looking forward to the sophomore effort from the NKPK stables but Nalan Kumarasamy’s, I will.

Nautanki Saala

Did Rohan Sippy release this film a week before what could have been the perfect date? This is a zany part interesting, part laborious take on Ramlila and exactly a week after its release was Ramanavami. But more than the perfect timing it could have helped if Sippy had made the final portions of this film a bit tighter and more funnier, little less theatrical (this is most definitely intentional but the fact is it doesn’t work)  and cut off a couple of musical interludes.

But credit to Sippy for keeping things intriguing and greatly winning on the atmospheric front. Rohan Sippy has always been impressive, to me at least, with his films and a sense of establishing a world. Almost all his opening credits are well thought out. It is always Bombay, but it is Rohan Sippy’s Bombay and Rohan Sippy’s Goa. The colours are vibrant yet natural. This was more pronounced in Dum Maaro Dum than anything else. The neon signs for Tibb’s frankie and the like; large movie-poster like hoardings for a play and the overacting producer who is also Surpanakha! All this lending it a more noir look for a comedy film. It is also littered with film references even if he is a bit partial to his father, it falls subtly into place in almost every script. Sholay might itself have a Ramayan connection but here too there are two friends, a suicide attempt and then there is the title itself.

Ayushman Khurana’s RP might well be Dittu from Bluffmaster. The same sort of humbling naivete mixed with cunning bravado and if you’ve watched Bluffmaster you’ll know that Dittu turns out to be the director of it all. And this film has top notch performances from both Khurana and Kunal Roy Kapoor. The comedy and the play portions are probably the best things about the film while the love story, though initially good, becomes painful by the end. Also, Evelyn Sharma – who plays Sita in the play within the film – would have made a far better Sita-in-the-film than Pooja Salvi.

The Ram-Raavan dichotomy is played for laughs all through the parts that work and this film could have turned out far better if it had retained its absurdity (Think the board on the gate that roughly says – “Don’t explode bombs here. The media becomes a pain.”) a bit longer and decided not to take itself seriously. But the good news is Rohan Sippy continues to be one of the directors to look forward to.

Between Points

Between points in a tennis tournament. It’s to take your seat in time and to learn to switch off flash in your cameras. No match is inconsequential but even the drama less early rounds are helped by the collective silence of a stadium, ready to let go any moment a player gives up his sprint to a drop shot or hits it just over the line. The gasps and exhales the second that happens, the palms coming together sometimes to applaud, to rub in nervousness at other times. It’s the Mexican wave that won’t stop in time for the umpire, that’ll go just about 3 seconds longer helped by Victor Troicki joining in, in frustration or in a way to relieve some tension being anybody’s guess.

So that’s indeed what a tennis tournament felt like. At least the glamorous and well organized ones. Sport, in any form, is a sort of illicit happiness. As Zinda, most famously said in Vetri Vizha, one loves the loser in a game. One loves the winner even more. But the guy who’s just watching the game? He’s just a lame timid nobody! But we know there is joy, there is sorrow in watching sport. There is enlightenment and contentment. And you find it in every corner of the tennis village, literal and metaphorical. The pubs and restaurants and hookah bars strewn all around the center court gates. The open tabs to go with the open air seating, watching a 20 odd minutes first game between Tipsarevic and Davydenko on the big screen, only to later learn in relief that that set finished 6-0.  The amble across to a side court to watch Tomic play and purify your mind, but alas, Tomic retired with illness. The careful choosing of which side of the grandstand to watch the day’s play from, either from behind the player seats or in front of them. Ending up with watching Federer from one side and Djokovic from the other.

It is where you witness the lethal aspects of Djokovic ground strokes. The backhands down the line. The balls landing all over the legitimate areas  of the court. The famed Federer forehand in all its glory, even if it is against Marcel Granollers. Well, you at last got to watch it. The Federer passes in that match were vintage. In the flesh is when you notice the ball kids more intently. When they fumble and do weird signs to signify dearth of balls for the player waiting to serve. It is when the now infamous 15 second rule comes into play with the players blaming ball kids. At least in Dubai, they are kids.  The place where you observe that however well organized a tournament could be, black cats can still pose as streakers and enter a Del Potro-Baghdatis match and you wonder if it’s someone transfigured. Maradona? Totally not beyond him. It’s watching a joyous Maradona hitting a few strokes with Del Potro, calling faults and getting up the player’s chair to give his towering countryman a hug.

But for all this you can also be greedy for the front seats. That’s where you need to know how useful a sweatshirt can be. Hang it around and just leave. Or if you are a group of people, the ubiquitous dupatta or an extra long scarf is handy. Just tie it over a row of seats. And be MIA for how ever longer you want. Even if the next man in is a GOAT. The occasional grumpy face can ruin your party but it is more than worth a try. That defines the success of the event. More appropriately, that defines the state of men’s tennis now. No empty seats when a match is on.

The tournament is where you learn that Federer lets out a mildly audible exhale on first serve. Audible only when you are sitting right behind his seat. And you’ll never know if it was always the case or it is the effect of being almost 32 years old. But it is bittersweet confirmation that he is human after all. It is also where you learn How To Get Autographs 101. Only kids are allowed court side. You are not allowed even if you claim to feel like one. So you run outside as soon as they’ve shaken hands at the net and wait at the pathway leading out of the court. Only to find tens of other experienced folk cleverer than you. You don’t repeat the mistake next day. Mostly because there’s a teenage girl who’s been coming with her parent for three years now. Once he (Federer) promptly arrived in Dubai and fell sick. The next time he didn’t sign any autographs outside the courts. She was third time lucky. She became notorious for exclaiming to the whole crowd, “Federer hasn’t come out yet. The loser just walked out.”. “Loser?”, “Umm..Ok, this guy.(points to Order of Play listing)“. It was Marcel Granollers There was this couple from Lebanon who had come all the way to watch Federer and faced similar problems of getting tickets for the later rounds. Oh, our species exists after all! They had collected autographs from every single player. Like, even Troicki. And the old English woman in the free shuttle (whatay! Well, oil rich place and all that) back to the metro, who talks about everything from Pakistan-England Test series in the UAE last year to whether Djokovic looks beatable this season (short answer is No).

The tennis world for a passionate fan can get claustrophobic. It’ll still feel like community, what with Tennis channel, online streaming, Twitter and minute by minute updates on players, but it will nonetheless seem like a gated one. The popularity seldom supersedes other sports or stays in the eyeballs of mainstream audience the entire stretch of the season. That’s the reason having an ATP (or WTA) event in your city is such a prestigious thing. It’s a huge highlight that Chennai has an ATP event, no matter it is a 250 but it is hardly celebrated for it (We have a long way to go here because even Test Cricket isn’t treated all that well). But some of us do. Then we take the leap from the 250 to a dazzling 500 event. Maybe next is a Masters if we go by hierarchy or hopefully a promotion to a Grand Slam. The man may have his racquets and a wax replica of his wrist in a museum but the game will be here always ready to serve. Play.

Zero Dark Thirty

(An edited version of this appeared in WTF magazine)

Zero Dark Thirty starts earnest enough with more sounds and little sights of 9/11 and its aftermath. The search for perpetrators of widespread terrorism started then and specifically the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, that this film primarily deals with. The rest of the film may not come across as impassioned and is mostly a mechanical depiction of the detainee program and the clues that led the US to Osama Bin Laden. That’s where the film enters documentary territory and its mess of moral problems.

Jessica Chastain plays the role of a CIA officer, part of the investigations in Pakistan. The veracity of such a character (in the real investigations behind Osama Bin Laden search) is in question and her name probably alludes to that – Maya. Maya is first shown mildly flinching when her colleague Dan interrogates a detainee, Ammar in ways that were then described as enhanced interrogation techniques. This is probably the slightest of remorse shown to be felt by anyone on the US side of affairs in the whole film. Maya comes to terms with it, albeit unconvincingly and quickly to hold her own interrogations once Dan leaves the scene. It doesn’t help that we jump between timelines and are never sure what year it is. There is little in terms of any introspection the characters go through in effect of this beyond stressful actions on their part. It is always fine to give only one side of the story. Steven Spielberg’s Munich did exactly that, showing us the Mossad side of events but it wasn’t one-dimensional like Zero Dark Thirty. It delved into the effects of the agents’ actions, their fear and how it impacts personal lives. We don’t see any of it and maybe it is intentional and essential since a story spanning a decade is condensed within 2-3 hours but the results aren’t all that great.

The film may do a bit of US chest beating but it tries to be as less dramatic about it as possible. That’s one of the good things. We never see an Obama on the screen (except for single news footage on tv). Nor are we shown Osama Bin Laden clearly before his death or after. It’s all kept vague so as to suggest the real and more authentic representation of events can never be filmed. The final 20 minutes or so are breathtaking with the Navy SEALs clinically going about their business of storming the household in search of Bin Laden. Here is where Kathreyn Bigelow establishes she works better on the field with the army men, bringing those deft touches that she showed throughout The Hurt Locker in building up the adrenaline. In contrast is the ridiculously staged sequence where Maya’s colleague is looking forward to an Al-Qaeda informant in Camp Chapman. The scene is predictable from the beginning but it also tries too hard to be and too long drawn out to make any real impact.

Zero Dark Thirty’s flagship is the final shootout. In its attempt to showcase that, the film gives a halfhearted account of the entire investigation leaving a lot of moral questions in its wake. If not for its political nature and events affecting the entire world, lending it an automatic credibility, this wouldn’t have made it to the Academy nominations in any form.

Vishwaroopam

(An edited version of this appeared in WTF magazine)

The desired starting point of anything written on this now world famous film is to say whether it is offensive anyway, to anyone or not. Well, to get the token announcement out of the way – it is not. The Vishwaroopam controversy over the past few weeks has operated solely on two ends of the spectrum – either it’s been utterly comical or unbearably sad.

The film too plays like it could have operated on just one end of the spectrum but has its footprints all over the place. That’s not to say it is a bad film by any means or there are no Kamal moments, in acting or writing. There is even the usually alleged narcissism of Kamal early on in the Unnai Kannadha dance sequence when Kamal goes to the mirror and kisses his own reflection – “vaayodu vaai pathithaan“. Or this could just point to the homosexual undertones of the character. The legitimate introduction plays out like one of the best Kamal has ever had in film in a long long time. Possibly ever. It is built up beautifully, even if Pooja Kumar’s deliberately grating Brahmin accent stands in the way at times, there is a Kamal histrionics microcosm packed all over leading up to this moment. And what a moment it is. Entirely worth repeat viewing.

This is followed by the Afghanistan segment of the story that’s probably best shot but also tries to move between a serious human interest story and a mindless spy thriller. There is a moment where he seems to suggest the problems with terrorists brought up as jihadis is that they’ve never had a chance at childhood in their life but that’s probably something that sounded much better on paper and didn’t translate as well on screen. The New York City part of the story moves in brisk pace but how much you buy of it probably depends on your tolerance for some corny writing and few racial and foreign stereotypes as characters. What’s more bothersome here is a little exposition. An act of deception in the charged Afghanistan story is well set up but it comes back as a flashback to painfully knock it into your head. Last week’s Kadal suffered from similar problems. As rewarding and ambitious as that film is, it adulterates with spoken metaphors. But Vishwaroopam isn’t as ambitious. It is happy giving you just the high moments. But that’s a question to two much loved artists of the 80s and 90s, Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan – where did the subtlety go? Why is there a “this the audience will get, this the audience will not” debate going on in the drawing board?

Vishwaroopam is a film that ends up biting off more than it can chew, of which Kamal is probably repeat offender. It tries to find a heart within the terrorists but it also spoils this development with some mickey mouse set pieces involving RAW agents, FBIs and the Indian Prime Minister! It clearly wants to play to the galleries. This is Kamal balancing a tightrope, an activity he seldom succeeds in as we’ve seen in the past few years. There is a deep void from the point of view of terrorists that he wants to go into but also wants to deliver a film that a more wider audience will enjoy. And that way, this is also an incomplete film. The problem is there isn’t much here that would make the wait for a companion piece hard.

This might come across as a negative reaction to the film but the truth is, it is solid entertainment. It also makes you question what it was that offended anyone here and why this had to be briefly banned. It is a well made, well shot action film and that’s all it is. The only question – Why is a man named Kamal Haasan making this?

David (Hindi)

I wasn’t overly impressed with Shaitan though Bejoy Nambiar’s framing of shots was a joy to be sucked into. I felt so mostly because Nambiar made a film about something that Anurag Kashyap had already done, quite sometime ago and very well at that. It was called Paanch.

But David is a different beast. Not flawless or genius but the technical brilliance is more willingly married to the scale of the subject and characters. The story of three Davids – one in London, one in Mumbai and the third in Goa are entirely different from each other but the central conflict in each is much the same. It boils down to the choices each of the eponymous characters makes and what bearing it has on the people around them. As expected, the film is visually stunning. Every frame, every shot is so carefully and lovingly constructed. There isn’t a thing that’s extra on the frame or standing out in a scene. It is slick and beautiful but where David wins for the most part is that it also has a heart. Maybe not three but it definitely has one. Or two.

The obvious winner here is David (Neil Nitin Mukesh) in 1975 London. The setting rendered in black and white is most greyish in character and feeds off the skills of Nambiar that seem just made to order for this noir-esque Godfather with bits of Miller’s Crossing thrown in. The scene with the David and Goliath wrestling bout as a backdrop for this David turning tables was a masterstroke. Neil Nitin Mukesh is good but this demanded someone with more screen presence and it helped a huge deal that this third of the lot was arresting despite it. But that’s where you needed someone of the stature of Vikram (in 2010 Goa). That’s commanding performance and commanding screen presence. Vikram here gets a very Vikram role. He has a typical introduction that harks back to his introduction in Saamy. This is home for Vikram, and if you are going to make this guy an unapologetic inebriated loverboy, like Nambiar does here, he would still make it his home. That’s what happens and even in a nothing plot – who cares about plot anyway – with great performances (Saurabh Shukla, Tabu)  and superbly queer characters, you can still come away with a compelling effort. David, drunk on alcohol and drowned in love,  rowing along with Roma in the dead of the night and having hallucinations was as joyful as it can get. A standout shot in a sequence full of standout shots.

The David in between (set in 1999 Mumbai) is probably the relative weak link of the story with nothing going for it, not even a performance worthy of mention and is quite bland throughout. It exists as if to solely tie in the elder David to the youngest to satisfy the nonexistent portmanteau constraints of the film. It is baffling that in the Tamil version, they chose to do away completely with the Neil Nitin Mukesh story and kept this one with Jiiva in the role. Quite a suicide act though I haven’t watched the Tamil one.

David is a solid sophomore feature from Bejoy Nambiar. Now that he’s finding stories to combine with his brilliant aesthetic sense, here’s to looking forward to more. Watch and watch out.

Almost Perfect

This was written more than a year ago and buried under my drafts and in other people’s emails. So, thought of posting anyway. On To Kill a Mockingbird, book and film.

The phrase “impressionable age” may have come to be used in a throwaway fashion now. But it still packs in deep meaning and context with respect to the human psyche. We are often shaped by people, surroundings and the atmosphere around us. The self-made man in all his literal definitions is more of an exception than norm. The sensibilities associated with the self would often carry a legacy to an inextricable past, tangible or intangible, ranging from family, friends, neighbourhood, society, city and country. These could be positive and negative, stemming from an invisible tutelage of carefully constructed character or destructively sown but seemingly invisible prejudice. One such story was told of a young girl named Scout Finch in the old town of Maycomb, Alabama that became an instant classic, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Harper Lee.

To put it plainly, there is no hot news to offer you on To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Widely regarded as a masterpiece, the only regret it left in the minds of everyone is that Lee never published another book. A semi-autobiographical account of a part of Lee’s childhood, To Kill a Mockingbird, with its eclectic choice of narrative devices drives home a strong message, without the apparent weight of a moral science lesson, and also doubling up as a book written extremely well and enjoyable to read. It won’t be wrong to say that To Kill a Mockingbird owes its thematic notions and with a bit of generalization, its geographical setting to Mark Twain’s classics. As Owen Wilson’s character in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris affirms, “I think you can make the case that all modern American literature comes from Huckleberry Finn“. Truer words have never been said. What more, To Kill a Mockingbird has been revealed to be Superman’s favourite book!

The narrative works as a grown woman recalling her memorable childhood with her father, brother and people of her small town and also as an allegory within the broader context with one of her neighbours – Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley. The mysticism that the Radley house holds for the kids and the neighbourhood stands as a testament to the racial tension and apparent apathy to an alternate point of view in the sleepy town of Maycomb. The issues surrounding the Tom Robinson trial and prejudice affecting the Southern town are symbolic of the bugaboo – of which Boo Radley is an obvious derivative of – in the room that everyone shows great interest in albeit for small talk. There is a beautiful symmetry in Lee’s writing that reveals itself in the end when the Robinson trial reaches its tragic denouement while the allegorical narrative ends with undertones of comedy. As tragicomical as the tale is, the conceit and the eventual lessons behind them feed off each other. It’s Boo Radley’s point of view that Scout regrets not to have considered, while it is the sort of innocent enthusiasm for Boo’s life that the kids had, that the parochial people could have done with. The entity that bridges the gap between these two compelling stories is the anchor – Atticus Finch.

The character of Atticus Finch has always stood for everything right in this world. So much so that it is considered to be more an ideal state than a practical one. Frances McDormand playing Elaine Miller in Almost Famous, exults in pride, “I can’t believe you wanna be Atticus Finch. Oh, that makes me feel so good.” when her son, William, claims he is a fan. That’s the sort of impossible moral standards Atticus Finch was always considered to be a symbol of. As a single father he is the guiding force for his young children and as the lawyer defending Tom Robinson, he is the last man standing up for the rights of the “colored” people of Maycomb. In many ways, Atticus Finch is the steadfast Gandhian that you can ever dream to come across. This can be interestingly anachronistic because Atticus Finch walked around in Gandhi’s shoes at a time when Gandhi’s collective consciousness was still seeping through parts of India. It’s probably right to say that we haven’t got the hang of it yet, and probably never will. On the other hand, far from being an anachronism, Gandhi and Atticus Finch existed somewhat in parallel universes that have had incredibly congruent timelines. Just two years after the book was published, Atticus Finch was immortalized on screen by Gregory Peck in a film that does full justice to the book it is based upon.

 The book could have very well been a screenplay within itself. Not to undermine the writing (Horton Foote) and direction (Robert Mulligan) but the film pretty much jumps out of the book as you read. It still required once in a lifetime performances and these come in the form of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Scout. Scout is the narrator and the one who remains in the sidelines as a diplomatic observer, and this is sketched exquisitely with the children’s actions. It’s always Jem and to an extent Dill who run to the courthouse, eavesdrop on proceedings, invade the no man’s land that is Radley porch. Scout follows them into these adventures but her reactions are more often than not incidental. The precociousness of Scout Finch acts as an antecedent of her behaviour that has a disarming innocence associated with it. The episode of Atticus Finch braving the mob that arrives to lynch Tom Robinson demonstrates this trait as much as serving as a parable contained in the larger story. Scout’s seemingly harmless questions for Mr. Cunningham discomfit the mob and they go away. But this is a perfectly natural attribute for a six year old kid like Scout. This demanded an innocent coming of age portrayal from Mary Badham and she doesn’t miss a note. The twitch of the face just before throwing a tantrum when Jem denies her something, the nervous excitement before first day of school and her tomboyish charms out in the open with other students – there was a reason Gregory Peck, while remaining in touch with Badham for the rest of his life, forever referred to her as Scout. There is also a method to Peck’s acting here. Apart from all the effortless underplaying, it is his use of props. It’s in the way he adjusts his glasses and eventually lets go of them before aiming at the mad dog. It’s how he meticulously picks up his lamp and book to go guard Tom Robinson through the night from the mobs. It is the way he picks up his papers and files and arranges them into his briefcase before walking out of the court. The aforementioned Gandhi-sque idealism that comes across when he remains stoic after Bob Ewell spits on him and his only frustration – much later outside his porch – showing up as an incomplete half-hearted dismissal with his hands.

Last year (2010) was the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird. A number of events were organized around the town of Monroeville, Alabama, the town that Maycomb is modelled on. There were readings, tours and plays organized around town. The courthouse in Monroeville, whose replica was created for the film, stands to this day as a museum for the book. A play based on the book, entirely community produced is shown in the museum that runs to packed houses even today. As we continue to revisit the phenomenon in all its forms, there will be one lasting set of frames from the film that will stay in our minds. Rev. Sykes pats Scout in the courtroom – “Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father is passing.”