Why Anand Patwardhan Thinks He Is A Failure...

Anand Patwardhan won the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival, 2014 - the world’s largest and oldest international festival for non-feature and animation films, which is being held between February 3 and 9. In this, his Acceptance Speech, he talks about why he thinks he is a failure, no matter what the world thinks of him and his works.  

Anand Patwardhan receiving his award.  (Photo by Satyen K. Bordoloi)

I have mixed feelings this evening as I accept this Lifetime Achievement Award.  Of course I am overjoyed that our work is recognized and deeply grateful to all those who must have struggled to make this come about.

I have been very lucky. I was lucky to have the parents, the family and the friends that I did, who gave me such unstinting and ungrudging support through all the times when our work was frowned upon by the authorities and ignored by the market. I am also lucky that despite opposition, many of my films got recognition both in India and abroad.

Here is where my mixed feelings come in. My films are nothing without the causes they speak about and the people they champion. Today if I ask myself whether these films really made a difference to the people and the causes they are about, I would have to admit that the difference is marginal.

Let me give just a few examples:

Prisoners of Conscience (completed in 1978) was about political prisoners in Independent India. Today our jail population continues to rise as our system refuses to grant bail even to those who have been in detention without trial for years. As I speak many prisoners have gone on a hunger strike to protest this long denial of bail.

Bombay Our City (completed in 1985) was about the macabre practice of demolishing the makeshift homes of the homeless. Demolitions are still in full swing as we continue to criminalize the poor instead of questioning a development paradigm that forces urban migration and urban poverty. 

In Memory of Friends (1990) and Ram ke Naam/In the Name of God (1992) were about the rise of sectarianism and violence in the name of religion. Today we may be on the brink of once again bringing to power those who were nurtured with the ideological mindset that killed Mahatma Gandhi, who engineered and celebrated the demolition of the Babri Mosque, who connive in or condone the massacre of minorities. Amongst those attacked and then denied justice, it also creates a thirst for revenge and counter-violence.

Father, Son and Holy War (1995) was about our patriarchal system and the connection between religious violence and machismo.  Today we are witnessing increasing attacks on women, communal assaults that include gang rape and a popular culture that celebrates manliness. And we have a prime ministerial candidate who publicly boasts of his 56 inch chest size even as his crimes of omission and commission during the pogroms of 2002 are forgotten and forgiven by the entire corporate world and its embedded media. 

A Narmada Diary (1995) was about the destruction and displacement caused by the gigantic Sardar Sarovar dam and about a peoples’ movement that forced the World Bank to stop further funding to the project. Today the dam is almost complete yet the water instead of reaching the thirsty in drought prone areas, is being electrically pumped to serve water-parks and promenades in urban Gujarat.

War and Peace (2002) was about India’s tragic decision to join the infamous nuclear club and become a nuclear weapons wielding State. As Pakistan replied in kind, the region plunged into nuclear insecurity and uncertainty. Today our departing Prime Minister when recounting the few achievements he is proud of, lists at the forefront a nuclear deal with the USA that lifted an embargo on India’s nuclear program and allowed it to plan a huge increase in nuclear plants across the country. In the wake of Fukushima when the world is finally waking up to the fact that nukes are not only unsafe, they are unaffordable, India is busy buying second-hand Chernobyls to populate our tsunami susceptible coastline.

Jai Bhim Comrade (2012) was about the music of protest of a people who for thousands of years were denied education, forced to do menial jobs and regarded as “untouchables”. According to official government figures, every day somewhere in this country, two Dalits are killed and three raped.  In our film one of the many groups protesting these atrocities was the Kabir Kala Manch (the KKM). By the end of the film KKM members had been forced to go underground after police began to brand them as Maoist “Naxalites”.  After Jai Bhim Comrade won awards including one at the last MIFF, and was extensively written about, we formed a KKM Defence Committee. Finally the KKM decided that with civil society support, it was worth it to come overground. They did a non-violent Satyagraha by singing outside the Maharashtra Assembly and were arrested. Three of them eventually got bail thanks to a High Court order, but 10 months later, three others are still in jail.  They all gave themselves up voluntarily, expressing faith in democracy. Their only weapons were their songs. Today it is really our political and judicial system that is in the dock.

So I say that my feelings are mixed. Added to the bitter sweetness of this moment is the fact that my parents to whom I owe everything are not here anymore. Nor are many of the protagonists in my films, people like Pujari Laldas, Jaimal Singh Padda and Shahir Vilas Ghogre who gave their lives for what they believed in. And during this long journey I have also lost many of my beloved and admired friends in the filmmaking fraternity, people like Pervez Merwanji, Saratchandran, Tareque Masood and now, Peter Wintonick.  

I am sorry for taking so much of your time. I am deeply grateful that my work, and through it, the work of so many others, has been recognized. I only hope that such awards will make our work and our causes more visible. Once that happens on a bigger scale, I am confident that change will come. Thank you !

Anand Patwardhan

Mumbai, 3 Feb. 2014

anandpat@gmail.com

Killing Them Softly – Soft, Subtle, Brilliant

Director: Andrew Dominik

Actors: Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins

Rating: 4/5

What is America? A great nation to some and to others an apostle of democracy, equality and liberty. Brad Pitt, in the last dialogue of ‘Killing Them Softly’ says, “America is not a country. It’s a business.”

It is this notion of ‘America’ that the film, succinctly, tacitly and humorously peels up by looking at one of America’s ‘greatest’ homegrown ‘business’ – organized crime.

Aware that Markie (Ray Liotta) the owner of a gambling den had organized a successful robbery on his own den, a crook hires two small time cons to rob it again knowing that the blame will go to Markie. With the town’s economy which depended on gambling, in ruins after this second hit, its crime lords call upon Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) to clean up the mess.

What follows is not just a simple ‘clean-up’ but a complete overhaul and perception management of the ‘business’ in town.

The violence here is more a hint of the structural violence rather than gun-pumping action.

‘Killing Them…’ is both a thriller and a comedy. It weaves in the best elements of both to give you a film that delights at many levels despite its unconventional treatment.

Instead of focusing on physical action, the film trains its lenses on seemingly inane meetings and conversations. It is thus filled with beautifully written and spectacularly enacted dialogues that may seem pointless to the average audience, but serves to take the story, ‘action’ and the violence forward in subtle but menacing ways.

Viewers who enjoy a freshly brewed, deep and rich drink will savour this tiny masterpiece like they have very few modern thrillers or comedies.

Yet, the masterstroke of the film is its brilliant metaphor, its parallel running and tagging up of the American financial situation with President George W. Bush trying to fight an economic downturn and incumbent senator Barack Obama talking of ‘change’.

What the film insinuates with Bush and Obama talking economics on TV is something very provocative. It’s well known now that the financial collapse of the American economy beginning 2008 was an inside job (just like in the film). In a below-the-belt metaphor to American capitalism, the film suggests that the assault on the economy was Bush’s doing like Markie robbing his own gambling den.

And the ‘change’ required to restore order in the nation, comes from an enforcer Barack Obama whose parallel is Jackie Cogan in the film.

The only change, however, that a business or a nation as a business will permit, is the change in profit. And finally when all is done and there’s nothing left to be said, it all boils down to that one world ‘profit’ as Jackie Cogan and America talk business and minimizing losses.

Adapted from a 1974 novel ‘Cogan’s Trade’ by George V. Higgins, this film by auteur Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James) is one of the most deceptively simple film you would have seen in a long time.

No matter what people say of America, one thing no one can doubt or deny is that America is the nation of the best politically critical cinema ever made in the world. And ‘Killing Them Softly’ because of its deceptive demeanor, would stand way up at the top of this list. 

(This review has been written for the wire-service, IANS)

Bel Ami – Tale Of A Misogynist Society

Directors: Declan Donnellan, Nick Ormerod

Actors: Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott

Rating: 4/5

It is hard to imagine a time in the western world where the only difference between a slave and a woman was that women were permitted a little more dignity by allowing them to dress up (to serve men) and mingle with them at least in parties.

Perhaps it is not so difficult to imagine women as second class citizens, because the discrimination against women even in the western world – albeit in a different form – continues to date.

And though the prism of feminism is not the obvious way to look at this tale of a man from a lowly background rising up the ladder of a corrupt society with his own corruption, the feminist angle is indeed how the makers want you to look at the film.

In a patriarcal society, even a brilliant woman like Madeleine has no option but to work under the opression of visible and invisible veils.

Georges (Robert Pattinson), a down on his luck and barely literate but dashing soldier in the 1890s, uses his affairs with society women to rise up in the Parisian society. When on top however, his male chauvinism kicks in and he tries to control the women in his life, to no avail initially but to disastrous consequences finally.

At the face of it ‘Bel Ami’ is the story of the corruption of Parisian society. But when you try looking deeper at the causes for the corruption, one that comes up will surprise you. For the film asks you: can a society that does not give women their due, ever be free from rot and corruption.

This rot is embodied in the character of Madeleine played by Uma Thurman. Despite being a brilliant writer and strategist and being better at the affairs of men then most men themselves, she needs the support of men for even just a bit of her talents to be visible.

Thus the nincompoop Georges becomes a perfect vessel to carry her brilliance, something which the entire society knows, but does not acknowledge in the open.

Problems emerge when this man, who alternately uses and is used by women, develops jealousy and a desire to be acknowledged for talents he does not possess. In the process he resorts to every dirty tactics in an already dirty society.

Madeleine thus becomes a metaphor for all the brilliant women throughout history including those now, women who have been pushed and kicked to the ground, their faces forced stuck to the dirty mud by the powerful boots of a patriarchal and misogynist society.

Brilliantly adapted from a novel by Guy de Maupassant, the film does a decent job of condensing 400 odd pages into 100 odd minutes. In doing so, gaps become evident and might seem discordant to many. But if you have a healthy imagination, it will actually accentuate the pleasure.

Lending evidence to the director and writer giving it a feminist tinge are many things. E.g. if George’s poverty were shown a bit more closely, we’d have found much more empathy for him. But the makers don’t want that. Instead they want you to feel for the women trapped in a man’s world and in their stupid games.

The film packs many moments and scenes rife with poignancy and brilliant dialogues. In one, Madeleine tells Georges in a fit of rage, ‘You stupid stupid man. You complete and perfect man.”

Stupidity indeed, seems to be the only perfection men are capable of.

 (This review was written for the wire service, IANS)

Hit And Run – Refreshing and Ingenious Romantic Comedy

Directors: David Palmer, Dax Shepard

Actors: Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell, Bradley Cooper

Rating: 4/5

One of the delights in life is to sometimes unexpectedly behold a little-known gem of a film that thrills you with its ingenuity. Usually one experiences this in an old film. To find this in a film playing in the theatres is sheer luck.

‘Hit And Run’ is one such film made by a passionate bunch of people which but for a relatively lesser known cast and bad luck of not having a better studio patronising it, would have been the toast of the town.

That Dax and Kirsten are real life couple, helps the film.

 Under witness-protection in small town America, Charlie (Dax Shepard) falls in love with Annie (Kirsten Bell). When she gets a new job in LA, Charlie decides to drop her off despite the possible dangers. Annie’s jealous and foolish ex-lover not only follows them, but gets both his cop brother and Charlie’s arch-enemy Alex (Bradley Cooper) on their tail.

What follows is a hilarious ride where a doctorate in non-violent conflict resolution is paired with a former bank robber trying desperately to control himself, a nutty ex-lover crosses path with an accident prone federal marshal with a gay cop and a crazy gangster in hot pursuit through rural America.

‘Hit and Run’ literally hits and runs over you with its ingenious and delightful humour. Be warned though for you can’t expect the over the top, outlandish comedy Hollywood is known for.

Instead you have a very refined comedy riding on some very sophisticated writing and neatly conceptualised sequences and well thought out characters, their idiosyncrasies and some whacky situation. But the whackness of the situation is not just because of something crazy happening visually (of which there is enough), but the interplay of characters, their prejudices and the choices they make or have made in the past.   

Amongst all the good things about the film, the best are its writing and romance. Then there is writing of the romance which is so realistic and observant of couple’s mannerisms of debate and fights, that it is almost eerie to see it on screen. That the lead pair of Dax and Kirsten are real life couples, perhaps adds to the believability of their love. 

More than commerce, the film is a work of passion where Dax Shepard not only plays the lead but is also the writer, co-director, co-producer and co-editor of the film. He and David Palmer, who have co-directed a film before, refine their creative partnership here. 

The sophistication of the film might prove to be a drawback at the box office, as viewers expecting a typical comedy might be surprised by it and not many pleasantly so. However, those who enjoy a good sprinkling of intelligence in their comedies will have a rocking time.

A perfect movie to go with your partner as it mixes and satiates the urges of both parties involved - the need for romance and the urge for masculinity with powerful cars driven by nutty characters. 

(This review has been written for the wire service, IANS)

Total Recall – Decent Re-imagination, But Falls Short

Director: Len Wiseman

Actors: Colin Farrell, Kate Bekinsale, Jessica Biel

Rating: 3.5/5

Before there ever was a Jason Bourne, or even a Neo (Matrix), there was the super-spy Douglas Quaid who jumped out of paper, borrowed flesh and blood from a world champion body builder in an attempt to figure out who he was.

His quaint search of his memory and purpose in life endeared him to the masses and ensured he stayed etched in their memory.

22 years later, though a remake makes a decent attempt to replace old memory with new ones, it does not succeed as it could have.

Does this induce a 'Total Recall' baby?

After going to a travel company providing fake memory implant, Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) realises he is more than a low-life factory worker. As he runs surprised by his lovely wife Lori (Kate Bekinsale) trying to kill him, he encounters a girl he has literally been dreaming about Melina (Jessica Beil).

Together they must find out what is there in his mind that has both the authorities and resistance fighters seeking him out. 

To be fair, this 2012 reboot did not have to be loyal to the 1990 film, just like that film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t completely loyal to the Philip K. Dick story ‘We Can Remember For You Wholesale’.

What both the films took from the short story, were its ideas on identity, totalitarianism and resistance. Yet, the 1990 version was more heartfelt and as emotions go, and seemed much more ‘real’ than this one despite its setting in Mars, mutants and alien technology.

The current version, as with most modern retelling of past films, sacrifices a good story and build up of emotion and suspense for a brilliant set design aided by corresponding camera work, spectacular visual effects and some great action sequences. In the older version, with air supply being turned off for ‘mutants’ you felt the pain and agony of those not like you unlike here where the ending seemed a let down despite a decent build up.

The representation of the perspective of those not like us, was the greatest strength of the 1990 version.

Secondly this version omits Mars and sets it entirely on earth with it being divided into two sections, the rich United Federation of Britain and the poorer colonies i.e. Australia where all the ‘workers’ live in one large, endless ghetto travelling back and forth on ‘The Fall’.

However, the characters of this ‘ghetto’ and their population was not built up well enough unlike the plight of the working mutants in the original. This was its major flaw.

Secondly, the 1990 version was much more subtle both in the story and in its message against totalitarianism. The freaks and mutants in it were a statement against the evils of everything nuclear considering that the affects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster was well known by then.

The major problem with this version is that it becomes too literal, and though you have characters making statements against all the evils in the world, the ‘telling’ of it instead of the ‘showing’ of it by a better script, lets the film down.

Yet, lovers of sci-fi and action films will have a lot to cheer as your three lead stars pack quite an action packed presence. The gadgets in the film, including the interesting concept of a mobile phone implanted in the hand will give you a lot to cheer about.

These elements make it a worthy watch despite the disappointments.

The Dark Knight Rises – Dark, Knightly and Rises Up to Expectations

Director: Christopher Nolan

Actors: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy

Rating: 4/5

Once in every few years, a films expectation reaches fever pitch. Yet, only a handful ever have lived up to it. The last in the Batman Trilogy, to the delight of fans, does. That it does so while continuing on the same themes it addressed before, is a feather hardly any film franchisee has claimed. 

Seven years since Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) retired Batman, a new villain Bane (Tom Hardy) threatens not only Gotham’s peace but its very existence. When the entire city is taken hostage by Bane’s men and the police are locked up, Batman must return, and fight an impossible resistance with a handful others.

The least one expects from a very popular, self-professed end of a series film is a grand scale. Most commercial cinema merely increases the effects and physical action. While Nolan indeed delivers on these, he goes beyond.

A bank or even a building being held hostage is well known in cinema. Did you ever imagine an entire city held hostage for months? Like in the second part of the series, Nolan then asks the question: would normal citizens rise up to become heroes?

Yet, morally and metaphorically, ‘The Dark Knight’ was stronger. There he asked the same question, but to individual citizens and in the climax on the two boats, to an opposite group of people. There, Batman wins because people in the two boats beat their instinct for self survival by refusing to kill the others for their own sake. In that scene, everyone becomes a superhero. Everyone becomes Batman.

That edginess of script, that triumph of true courage, is missing in this part. It compensates by rising on other counts.

The Nolan brothers (Christopher and Jonathan) know how to intermix a grim story of power, corruption, control and heroism with a spectacular razzle-dazzle. In a very powerful screenplay the brothers bring attention to the corruption, the power structures and the chaos of the affluent class.

And the brothers, in creating villains that are alter-egos of Batman, and in often giving them ideals as high as him but in the end showing these anarchist villains failing, perhaps makes the greatest joke, the greatest metaphor on the state of the world today.

Perhaps the hidden, dark message is that no matter how much one resists – be it Batman or his villains, a corrupt power structure and affluence, will survive. The brothers perhaps want to say that resistance, eventually, proves futile. Perhaps they want to say the opposite, that good and bad, light and darkness and falling and rising take turns and that no matter what, one has to resist.   

Nolan is a man in absolute control of his craft. You’ll be hard pressed to find a man with such an ability to interplay sound and visuals to create a three dimensional vision in your head.

Hans Zimmer assist him with superlative yet gentle and sombre background score while as expected, the special effects division delivers the wares without going overboard.

Nolan carries forward the themes from the previous two films, fear, death, anger, corruption, heroism and chaos and rounds them up into a perfect whole.

In the end though, the true hero that rises from this series is Christopher Nolan. In the wasteland of commercial Hollywood cinema, he is the best thing that has happened in a long long time. May his clan increase everywhere. 

(This review was written for the wire service, IANS)

The Intouchables – Must Touch & Feel

Director: Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano

Actors: Omar Sy, François Cluzet

Rating: 4/5

What comes to mind when you think disability? Sadness, pity and charity? And what comes to mind when you think disability films? Same? If that’s the case, ‘The Intouchables’ – the story of a man paralysed from the neck down and his helper, will surprise you with its wit, humour, fun and zest for life.

Driss (Omar Sy) goes for an interview as a helper for a paraplegic person only to get unemployment benefits. His acerbic frankness wins the heart of the disabled person Philippe (François Cluzet) who hires him against better advice.

The two form an unlikely pair, one physically disabled, the other socially; one morose the other full of life; one with the money to do everything but not the limbs, the other with the limbs and life but no money or social standing; one white the other black.

As they touch each others life, in a fun, poignant manner they change forever, becoming more the men than they ever though possible.

Can disability be fun?

The two things that will win your heart in the film, is its witty humour and the chemistry of the lead pair. Rarely in cinema have two actors been so different and yet their pairing been so perfect, and their timing so immaculate.

Omar Sy as the black man from a Parisian ghetto is a revelation while veteran actor François Cluzet delivers a punchy performance.

The Intouchables is a very important film in the history of cinema, because it is one of the rare instances where a film about a person with disability does not rely on pathos, melodrama and pity. The writer/director pair of Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano handle this true story of an actual odd couple with a dignity, sensitivity and humour rare in cinema. 

It becomes and important film because it explores a hitherto rarely explored dimension of disability i.e. the life and living of people with disability and not their sadness. Yes it is sad they are disabled, but it is in no way pathetic and no way does it mean that life ends where disability begins. Indeed, many disabled people claim today – to the utter surprise and horror of ‘normal’ people – that for many of them life actually began after their disability.  

Thus in showing that the most precious commodity in life is not necessarily the use of limbs, but a positive frame of mind, friends and laughter, it becomes a great, funny, poignant and uplifting film. Don’t miss it for the world. 

(This review has been written for the wire service, IANS)