Kapilash Movie Reviews

Name:
Location: India

I am a 128 year old shamana. I stay in a mosquito-infested cave near Nikanth Peak, Himalayas ( the nearest post office is at Badrinath, 40 km away. And the nearest bar is 30 km away). I am now completely into spiritual practice - to eliminate my ego and attain Nirvana. Through this long spiritual journey I learnt not only the techniques needed in eating raw bats, but also about the hindu theory of "aham brahmasmi" and its two corollaries - (i) I am the best movie critic. (ii)I am the best director. I have also solved the zen koan - " If you meet the buddha on the road, kill him". No. I havent implemented it yet. I am waiting to meet Bergman (on the road). Occassionally, I come down (both literally and figuratively), to enlighten people about movies , books n ghazals.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas (2006)

Language:French
Director: Philippe Lioret

In total contrast to my previous attempt at movie-watching in Israel, I came across this one almost accidentally.It was playing to a near empty house in an obscure theatre, hidden inside the Tel Aviv art meuseum. Itook the ticket without even knowing the title - just ensured that there are subtitles in english too. But ended up sitting engrossed for close to 100 min. A movie with a great plot and awesome screen play. Characters change their colours right under your nose without you noticing a tiny bit. Elise ( played to near perfection by Melanie Laurent) has just returned to Paris after a brief stay in Barcelona for a course or something. Immediately on her return, she's in for a rude shock - her twin brother has split from the parents for what then seems to be a very trivial reason. They are a very attached bro-sis duo and this girl's getting increasingly edgy about his absence. He does not return .He did not leave a note for her. He doesn't return her calls. He does not try to contact any one in the family. And worse, the father does not seem to care. And nobody seems to tell her the truth about the reason why he left. Finally, the girl loses it and ends up in a solitary psychiatric hospital ward, being fed forcefully. When every one has lost the hope, the brother finally gets in touch. He's been drifting and is moving from place to place in some western european towns. However, he leaves a hint about the reason for his absence. In his letter, he criticizes his father refering to him as a creep. But the letter does improve the girl's situation and she slowly gets back to life. She leaves school and starts working in a super market. She still is worried about her bro and why he doesn't want to see her.And she's still puzzled about his absence. However, the letters she recieves from him (without a return address, and each one from a new city) are cheerful. And all of them end with an accusatory note on their dad. Then the story takes dramatic but subtle turns and finally a touching ending. Great cinematography and brilliant direction. EXCELLENT performances. And great music score in the background.

9/10

Aviva Ahuvati (Aviva, My love2005)

Language: werbeH er.. Hebrew ;-)
Director: Shemi Zarhin
I tried to search for the titles of some good Israeli films but it wasn't too easy considering most Israeli sites are in hebrew.I did come across this one, which seems to have won a bunch of awards. It is written and directed by a certain Shemi Zarhin with multiple awards from Israel film academy to his/her credit for various films.But ended up disappointed.
We have seen umpteen films where the protagonist is talented and passionate about an art/skill but his family and/or the circumstances around him stop him from achieving the stupendous success he/she deserves.There will inevitably be a guardian angel whose raison d'etre ( both literally and figuratively) is to help this protagonist achieve his much deserved super stardom. Then there will be a rift between the two. After which, the protagonist decides to lead a 'normal' life the decides to sell his soul and to lead a normal life. But (s)he's snapped out of this crisis by some one who had hitherto been one of the unsympathetic.Then the protagonist comes out self-induced downfall to a rising finale in the background. We have also seen umpteen feministic movies - with the heroine as the sole bread earner of the family and where all the male characters are either leceherous, unemployed or violent or devilious. And there's a new tendency - to make one of the male characters impotent. That too due to psychological reasons (thats the only curable variety, I guess).Then the heroine steps in to finance the treatment, thereby adding to the supposed irony - the lady in the family not only does the man's duty(of earning bread), she also helps him get his manhood. Combine the above two to get the story of this film.
Aviva , from a middle class family in Tiberias (North Israel). She has a passion for writing. Normal incidents and simple objects that she comes across during her day job as a cook in a hotel, inspire lovely phrases and plots in her and her mind immediately conjures up a new progression to the latest story that she's writing. What stops her from a stellar career as a short story writer is the family situation:husband - unemployed and grumpy and seems to have an eye on her sis.Elder daughter - grumpy, unemployed and adds to her woes with a 5000 sheqel bill.Younger daughter - too young to be of any helpelder son - unemployed and impotent (only a psychological problem, mind you).Needs a 1000 sheqel toget cured.Mom - almost crazy; dad - not a burden on this girl but seems to have a lecherous past ( cause of her mom's condition)An ex novelist - supposed to be a mentor but seems to have his own agendaHer sister - subjected to domestic violence.Anita(the sister) , her own troubles not withstanding, is the only one who helps her out in her own little ways. Inspite of the cliched story line, the movie succeeds in holding your attention thanks largely to the direction and immaculate screenplay. That she's a gifted writer is depicted beautifully. Her inspirations are also captured well. The story fragments we hear seem really interesting. We wont have any doubt in our minds that she's a gifted writer.And the performances are top notch.And a nice music in the background ( a song too).

6.5/10

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Udoli vcel(Valley of bees,1967 )

Language:Czech
Director:Frantisek Vlasil
Cast: Petr Cepek, Jan Kacer, Vera Galatikova,Zdebek Kryzanek
The movie, set in the medieval times,is about a certain Ondrej/Andrew who has been, when a kid, sent to an order of faith "up the north".The order members , apart from addressing each other as brother and indulging in the "great fasts" and other self-depraving acts, take great pride in keeping their order intact and punishing the "weak and infidel" who try to escape.
Andrew escapes and goes back to his house and a "brother" from the order - Armin, comes after him, vowing to bring him back to the order. How Andrew behaves after being relieved of the stringent rules of knighthood and whether Armin succeeds in his mission or not form the rest of the story.
There's an ample dose of meta-physical and poetic symbolism , much of which went way over my head ( When he's a kid, his dad marries a girl who's barely older than him. Andrew gives her a basket full of flowers as a gift. And she finds that there are bats(!?!?!) hidden among the flowers.Dunno WTF it's supposed to mean. Whats with all the bees anyway? Was it supposed to be an analogy of human life? But yeah, the shots related to the bees were AWESOME. ) But, inspite of all my ignorance of this hifi stuff, I found it a very a gripping drama aided with some wonderful performances. And there's some lovely western classical music in the background. Especially the heavenly piece on a flute-like instrument is absolutely ammmazing!!
Movie is in black and white ( ofcourse) , and the cinematography is cool. But at times the camera work resembles that of a hand-held mini DV (in the amount of shake). The print was also very poor.
One of the highlights of the movie is a deer-hunting scene. Am willing to bet that real deer and dogs have been used to film the sequence. (NFAI guys should thank God that Maneka Gandhi and her ilk do not watch Czech movies).

Interesting movie.Definitely worth a watch if you are even remotely interested in the crusaders and/or religion-vs-pleasure themes.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Anantayatra (1985)

Director: Jayoo Patwardhan,Nachiket Patwardhan
Language:Hindi
Cast: Sudhir Joshi,Rohini Hattangadi,Naseeruddin Shah,Anuradha Patel

The movie is about a certain Anant Godbole ( Sudhir Joshi, a very famous Marathi theatre personality) who is going through mid-life crisis. He finds himself entrapped in the ratrace - finds his job as a manager at a manufacturing company very unrewarding, loses connection with his wife ( Rohini) and is troubled with the widening gap between him and his children.
He keeps grappling with medical tests and doctors in a vain hope of finding some medicine that will put an end to all his problems. One day, out of blue, he gets a call from a mysetrious Mr Jaduwala , Naseeruddin Shah speaking in wonderful Gujarati accent, offering a solution for all his troubles. Although he is sceptic about it all and dismisses the call as a hoax, Anant Godbole finds himself at the Jaduwala residence at the appointed time.
What follows is a hilarious but immensely thought provoking ride right on the Line of control between reality and imagination.
Sudhir Joshi gave a GREAT performance. So did Rohini Hattangadi. I wonder why we could not see much of this immensely talented lady. Anuradha Patel has an interesting role as Shakuntala. And needless to say, Naseeruddin Shah gives yet another BRILLIANT performance. Right from his voice, accent, make-up and posture to his expressions while spouting his philosophy, he totally is in command.
Music by Hridayanath mangeshkar is not bad. Cinematography , especially in the sections related to Anuradha Patel is lovely.
In all, a good comedy with some great performances.
8/10

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

15 Park Avenue

Language:English
Director: Aparna Sen
Cast:Konakana Sen Sharma, Shabana Azmi,Rahul Bose, Waheeda Rehman, Shefali Shah

The movie is the story of two sisters Mithali (Konkana sen sharma) and Anjali (Shabana).The latter is a physics proffessor in a university and has a a couple of books to her name.
Mithali is driven by her search for her home and her desire to reunite with her family.
She even knows the address (15 Park Avenue, Kolkata).But there are a couple of obstacles - 1. there is no park avenue in Kolkata and 2.she hasn't been married. Infact she is a schizophrenic who lives in her world where she's married to a certain 'Jojo' and has four children.
Anjali, a strong willed woman, is determined to protect and take proper care of her younger sibling, in the process sacrificing quite a bit of her personal satisfaction.
We can see quite a few resemblances between shabana's character and Urmila's role in "Maine Gandhi ko nahi maara" or numerous other such films where a 'normal' guy/gal does a lot of sacrifices for protecting an 'abnormal' sibling/loved one .
Rahul Bose plays the role of a realistic yet gentle guy who attempts to bridge the ever widening chasm between Mithali's world and Anjali's world (or the 'real' world).
Movie poses interesting questions about reality and has a wonderful and thought provoking ending.
Performances are TOP notch.. Konkana is a darling. As always, Shabana plays her role to perfection. And we have waheeda emoting excellently as the helpless mother of these two.
Rahul bose is as reliable and as restrained as ever. Shefali shah too does a great job but her character is a bit cliched.
Cinematography is excellent.. especially the Bhutan sequences. Music is also cool.

Overall, a must watch. 9/10.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Elippathayam(1981)

Director: Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Language:Malayalam
Cast: Jalaja,Karamana Janardanan Nair ,Sharada

Elippathayam ( Rat Trap) is the third film by Adoor and is supposed to be the first one to bring him international acclaim.
However, this is first time I saw any of his films and I was taken aback at the way the movie begins. A household of three - a brother and two sisters are disturbed from their sleep as a rat bites the brother. Immediately followed one of the most OTT scenes I've ever witnessed in a movie. The three of them run to and fro in the house trying to catch the rat. We see only their legs and we hear a weird background score. I was shocked at all this. I had taken considerable pains to come to watch this movie at NFAI and I was like WTF!. Is this a film by the Great Adoor , the director who's supposed to have made 9 PERFECT films in his 43 year career, the man considered to be the heir of Satyajit Ray in the Indian Cinema?
But soon my fears were put to rest as the film seemed to have come to senses and everything was shown perfectly. It was as if I was a member of this small family and am watching whats going on the lives of Rajamma ,an over aged unmarried girl who does all the household chores, a college going sridevi and their brother Unni.
The film looks at Unni, played brilliantly by Karamana Janardhan Nair, who's the head of this family and is stubborn, narcisstic,feudalistic and an escapist to the core. And much more. According to the director the film is a "a detailed study of a character at many levels -- psychological, physical, social, even genetic, based on his roots. I gave primary colours to the characters' clothes and a predominant gray to the background. "

Through various incidents that happen in this family, we get to know the contrasting personalities of the three siblings. We see an old family relative bringing up a match of a widower for Rajamma (played brilliantly by Sharada), a stray cow eating the leaves of the banana tree in their yard, Unni trimming his moustache with utmost concentration, thieves stealing away their coconuts, some relatives who drop in on them,the love story of Sridevi, Rajamma falling sick and so on.
Amidst all these, we notice that the rat trap set by the younger sister is working and that it catches quite a few rats. And everytime a rat is trapped, Sridevi takes the trap with the trapped rat to a pond situated a li'l away from the house and drowns it there. This scene is infact a motif and occurs quite regularly - and each time we notice that the camera is located in a particular position vis-a-vis the road , and that Sridevi always walks in a particular style and speed, and a background music composed mainly of the drums used in folk music.And always the scene ends with a shot of a ripple in the pond and a crow singing in the background. Later in the movie, when we see the same scene sans the rat and the trap, we learn what exactly the rat trap Adoor is talking about.
However the best is kept for the climax - when we see various people moving to and fro in a
house , as we see only their legs and we hear the same weird music which we hear in the first scene, providing us with a brilliant insight.
One of the interesting points about the movie is that except in the above mentioned scenes, there's no background music at all. About it, Adoor says "The music was also much more than a mere background score; it was employed as a significant constituent of the film in its thematic development."
A GREAT movie. 10/10.

Navarasa ( 2005)

Director: Santosh Sivan
Language: Tamil

This movie is about the mother of all identity crises - that about one's sexuality. The film is about people from the third gender and the aravan festival in koovagam, told through the eyes of an innocent, emotionally mature and fearless little girl.

The movie begins with a mere-khwaaboin-mein-jo-aaye style dance number by a little girl who soon realises, that she's entering adulthood. And before she could come to terms with this new status, she notices strange behaviour in her beloved uncle( her fathers younger brother), who till then, had appeared only as a typical 'loser'. Soon she has the first shock , when she learns about 'his' predicament - that he is a wanna-be she. And he leaves home to go to koovagam and get married to Aravan. This little girl then goes in search of him, to bring him back - for she sincerely believes that a good doctor can solve the problem.
And the rest of the movie is like a documentary about koovagam festival and about the life of people from the third gender.
And we also have glimpses of the innerworld of all these people. Think of it - they dont worry about their religion, they dont bother about careers or fame or money or any ultimate goals in life.... The fuzzyness in their gender gives them an identity crisis of such an intensity that it takes a lot to accept their own sexuality. And for those who come to accept it, the goal is automatic - to live a dignified life in this bi-polar society - an almost impossible battle.
The effect of showing it all through the eyes of a girl (who's just entered adolesence) is brilliant. Her naive optimism and her innocent acceptance of the third gender is hard hitting, to say the least.
Through out the movie, something I picked from Spinoza's - "On the improvement of Understanding" kept running in my mind - This is relativism to the core. I probably will never look at a person from the third gender the same way again. ( somehow the word 'eunuch' seems very derogatory).

And yeah all other minor aspects - music, editing etc are all good.
With Santosh sivan at the helm, it goes without saying that cinematography ise brilliant. A few shots stand out - the one showing lots of broken bangles in different colours, and the ones depicting the scale of the festival etc.
There are a few theatrical scenes and a couple of hackneyed characters, the movie could have done without which, probably to emphasise how society deals women/sex. Otherwise , it is a perfect movie.
9/10.

Mandi (1983)

Director: Shyam Benegal
Cast: Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah,Smita Patil, Kulbhushan Kharbanda,Ompuri,Amrish Puri,Neena Gupta and many more.

The film, a comedy, set in a semi urban locality in Andhra Pradesh, has a wonderful plot revolving around a brothel house and its inmates.
It has a casting that includes every worthwhile actor in Indian cinema... well almost. We have Shabana azmi, Smita patil, Naseeruddin shah, saaed jaffrey , kulbhushan kharbanda , neena gupta, ompuri, amrish puri, Ila arun - all play more or less important roles.
And yes, there's Pankaj kapur in a GREAT cameo.. Easily the best cameo in the history of cinema - and one of the highlights of the movie.

Other highlights are:

  • Shabana azmi as Rukminibai , a lady who runs a brothel house- her acting , her character, her accent, her attire, her bindi, her chemistry with other characters, the way she walks,the way she looks in a mirror everytime she passes one, her singing(!!) - AMAZING!!!!
  • Naseeruddin shah - SOLID performance as "Tungroos", a faithful, multipurpose servant in the rukminibai household and ofcourse, mostly, drunk
  • Smita patil - she acted like a dream - to use a cliche. The way she giggles, her expression while singing, her romances, her relationships with the male characters,the chase involving her in the climax.... Movie is a must watch , just for her.
  • Sayed jaffrey - wonderful as usual.... His expressions as the chairman of some municipality board are fantastic.
  • Music : Music by vanraaj Bhatia , with a lot of classical touch, is great to say the least. And there a few ghazals placed wonderfully in the plot.
  • Ila Arun and her labour pains
  • Ompuri and his photography..
  • Amrishpuri and his philosophy
  • Kilbhushan kharbanda ,his business negotiations and those with a parrot in the rukminibai's place.
  • Yeah that parrot is another highlight...
  • the way each character is written ( and the role each character plays in the story)

and I missed a few others - each of them, by itself , a reason to watch the movie.
( But what are a few hundred reasons between friends?)

PS: Don't decide upon the best indian movie ever before watching this one..