Bol – Speak Up For This Little Masterpiece

Director: Shoaib Mansoor

Actors: Humaima Malick, Manzar Sehbai, Atif Aslam

Rating 4 out of 5

Pakistan, in contrast to India - the largest film industry in the world, barely makes a handful of films every year. To see a Pakistani film that is better than most commercial Indian films, is embarrassing. Bol, despite its few flaws, becomes that minor masterpiece that puts Bollywood to shame.

A woman sentenced to death, recounts her story of growing up in the shadow of an oppressive father who denies his girls their fundamental rights.

At the face of it, the film seems apolitical. However, one of the feminist movement’s clarion reasoning for action against oppression has been that the personal is political. And it is this politics in the personal story of this family, that writer-director Shoaib Mansoor of ‘Khuda Ke Liye’ handles with élan.

Shoaib Mansoor manages a very difficult task of taking up many issues without losing focus on any. You thus have issues of women’s emancipation, transsexualism, right to education and religiosity etc. handled with care enough for the audience to feel for each. The layers in the script itself make it a worthwhile watch. And that the film opens up gradually like an engaging mystery, keeps the viewers engrossed.

To carry so much loads on its shoulders the film needed some superlative performances. It has this in Humaima Malick who portrays the angst of a girl who itches to do the right thing and Manzar Sehbai who is stellar in his performance of a pigheadedness, hypocritical man.

The songs are catchy, especially ‘Kaho’ - the least one can expect from a Pakistani film considering their strong musical scene. The only problem however, is its melodrama that sometimes does get overbearing. But it is a small flaw, amidst its many skills. 

At first look it is easy to denounce it as a statement against the oppression of women under Islam. That is indeed true, considering that women’s emancipation has yet failed to touch Muslims to a significant extent. Yet, to call the film just that would be an insult to its intelligence. For what it does in the chauvinist, hypocritical and obnoxiously religious character of the father, is create a template for closed-minded men everywhere. His stubbornness and manhood, is a metaphor for ‘the’ manhood that causes war and destruction everywhere.

Replace the Muslim Hakim, with a staunch Hindu man, and set the film in India, and it would be true frame by frame. If you look at the treatment of women in India, it is often worse with literally hundreds of thousands of women being killed before birth or during it annually in India. Female infanticide is one of the most obscene elements of Indian, Hindu society. Also almost in every village, small town and city in India you’ll find scores of such cases of chauvinist men doing worse to their wife and girls.

Asia’s most revolutionary poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, in one of his most rousing poems, had written, ‘Bol ke lab azad hai tere..’ (Speak that thy lips are free). In this, and in the film, lies a message for us all, to speak out against oppression, be it in the political sphere or the personal. The current anti-corruption movement under Anna Hazare has shown the power of this ‘Bol’. When many in chorus scream, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore,” things change. Are you mad enough yet? If not, watch Bol, and you will be.

This review has been written for the wire service, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS).

The Devil’s Double – Masterful Subtexts, Stunning Performance

Director: Lee Tamahori

Actors: Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier and Raad Rawi

Rating: 4 out of 5

The US, has been preoccupied with Iraq for decades. After 911, its politicians cooked up reasons for a real occupation. That preoccupation and occupation, continues with The Devil’s Double, that carries an Oscar worthy, scintillating performance by Dominic Cooper. His performance would have been enough to watch this film, but its extremely interesting subtexts makes this a must watch despite its many flaws as a film.  

A soldier, Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper), is summoned from war to become the body double of Saddam Hussain’s son Uday Hussain (Dominic Cooper) – a psychotic, erratically violent, sex and drug obsessed fiend. This family loving and god-fearing man finds it difficult to imitate a monster leading to confrontation that threatens his and his family’s existence. 

The film is a masterpiece of deception. At the face of it, the film seems to portray the devilish life of Iraqis under a dictator – Saddam Hussain. And it does seem so when one considers the excesses of Uday Hussain and how his father tolerates him. However, this is actually a masterful deception that even Houdini would have been proud of.

For hidden inside this deception, is actually a positive portrayal of both Saddam Hussain and everyone else in Iraq. Saddam is even shown trying to kill his devilish son, only to be stopped at the last moment. The people who work for him are all honest and god-fearing in their own way. The citizens in the nation, enjoy a good life and girls are shown wearing skirts to school, much against the burqa-clad impression people have of any middle eastern country. The only devil in the picture, is Uday.

The political subtexts of the film are thus well hidden. It seem to suggest tacitly, if you consider current global politics today, that like Uday in the film, the devils who invaded and raped the otherwise beautiful and fairly peaceful country, are Americans.

Uday thus becomes a symbol of the Americans, and his double Yahya, of the innocent Iraqi forced into an occupation they did not seek or deserve. Yes, like Yahya, the citizens were in the midst of their own conflict under Saddam, but the American occupation multiplied it exponential times.

And in that, this surprisingly apolitical film becomes one of the strongest political films, and an indictment of American policies in Iraq. Its politics is hidden in a veneer of Uday’s brutality. Kudos to the writers and director to have pulled this off with such finesse.

The greatest strength of the film is the explosive performance of Dominic Cooper. He plays the nervous energy of a madman and immediately afterwards the nervousness of another man trapped by that energy with equal élan. His performance as Uday, has the same intensity of a Daniel Day Lewis playing Christy Brown in My Left Foot. Daniel won an Oscar for that film. Will Dominic win for this one?

As a film however, its varying pace is a little disconcerting. And so is its melodramatic ending. However, the entendre and the double entendres, the images and splitting images, the deception and the double deceptions, makes this a masterful creation despite its flaws that will keep the viewers engaged till the end. Hopefully, much longer than that.

This review was written for, and copyrighted by the wire service, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS).  

Winnie The Pooh – The Best Animated Film Of 2011?

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Directors: Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall

Voiceovers: John Cleese, Jim Cummings, Bud Luckey, Craig Ferguson, Jack Houlter

Today there’s no limit to what a filmmaker can do with animation. The limit is set by his or her imagination. To understand how, watch Winnie The Pooh, a film that has the look of a Disney movie from 30 years back, but feels fresh and magical, just like the original books by A A Milne has been to millions.

In Ashdown Forest lives a group of animals and a boy who are best of friends. After the perennially gloomy donkey Eeyore loses his tail, his friends try to find it. But Pooh the bear, driven by hunger, simply can’t get hunny (honey) out of his mind.

The Winnie The Pooh series of books, with its warm, simple stories of friendship and fun, have captivated the imagination of millions of kids for over 8 decades now. There have been films and shorts and animated series on the same, the most famous being the 1977 film.

If you know Hollywood executives with no sense of cinema, you’d know that they would have wanted to alter this classic and bring out a ‘new’, ‘modern’ film. Thankfully, they have resisted this temptation and the film instead focuses on the essence of Winnie The Pooh which for kids represents the innocence of friendship and for adults the magnificent Shangri-la full of wondrous nature and animals and imagination that their childhood had been.

In the process Disney has managed to make a truly universal film that babies barely a few days old, oldies in their death bed and everyone in between can enjoy. Not many films, after Charlie Chaplin’s masterpieces, can claim the same credit. Yet, behind this simple, funny tale are some invaluable lessons that as adults we tend to forget – of love, of friendship, sacrifice and the love of nature.

A daft owl pretending to be smart who’s always writing his biography, a perennially depressed donkey, a resourceful piglet, a bouncy tiger, a red balloon with his own moods… where else will you find such an ensemble of quirky characters that charm with their simplicity.

What will however inspire and amuse adults quite a bit, is its intelligent and quirky writing. The potential of the English language to tie itself into knots and tickle the funny bone has been squeezed to the hilt. Particularly delightful is a pun with the word ‘not’ which leads to a hilarious misunderstood communication between the characters.

This is how films once used to be – simple, innocent, intelligent and eternal in its reach. Advancement in animation technology has actually sent animation cinema to the gallows. Out comes Winnie The Pooh to remind us of what is most crucial in a film, it’s heart. And that the best special effect in any film is not what you see on screen, but what you induce in the mind of the viewer.

If a filmmaker is ever in doubt of what cinema should be, s/he merely needs to replay this film. For everyone else, you can play it when you’re happy, you can play it when you’re sad. And you ought to especially play it when the rush of modern life makes you a tad too mad. A A Milne and Walt Disney would have loved this.

This review has been written for, and hence copyrighted by Indo-Asian News Service (IANS).

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes – Ape-solutely Lovely

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Actors: James Franco, Andy Serkis and Freida Pinto

Rating: 4 out of 5

Every revolution has three phases: rampant injustice, germination of revolt against it and full-fledged revolution usually led by someone. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (ROTPOTA) chronicles these stages, reminding us to be grateful that animals perhaps cannot rise up against brutal humans who butcher them in the millions everyday even when they can eat other foods.

Caesar, a genetically modified ape who’s secretly raised by a scientist Will Rodman (James Franco), grows up with an intelligence exceeding humans. After being confided with other apes, like the Buddha he witnesses injustice for the first time. He unifies other apes, and rises up against the ruthless humans.

Hollywood has a history of action films full of CGI but lacking basic imagination. ROTPOTA, despite its stunning visual work, is surprisingly good in almost every department making it one of the most perfect commercial films ever.

Action films are not simply the display of violence. They are essentially about humanism and feelings whose subjugation finds expression in physical violence. Thus the violence outside, becomes a metaphor and a physical representation of the violence inside and is a statement against the rampant injustice that causes it in the first place.

External violence is thus shaped by internal conflict. Most filmmakers don’t understand this and though one does not need to know this to like an action film, the disproportionate nature of internal vs. external violence makes for a far less satisfying film. Director Rupert Wyatt understands this perfectly and though he could have gone overboard, considering the potential the story presents, he exercises restraint making ROTPOTA that much more enduring.

Despite its predictable plot, there are so many parallels, allegories and metaphors in the film that it’s a delight for discerning viewers. In Caesar we have the representation of a typical revolutionary and unlike many real revolutionaries he displays a rare humanism and regard for life.

The true core of Caesar is love for his ape-kind and not the hatred of those who brutalize his kind. Thus the fact that the ape Caesar is more human than most people is a satire on entire humankind. When he refuses to kill even when he can, he rises higher in his morality than every single human in the world who eats animals that are as living and feeling as humans are.

Frieda Pinto tries hard to imitate the accent of a South American. Thankfully she is meant only to be an eye-candy. James Franco, expectedly, is good but the winner is CGI. All the apes in the film exist only on the computer. But to get right so many facial expressions makes all the difference in the film and brings the apes alive in the viewer’s imagination. It is Caesar’s expressions that give representation to the fact that his humanism exceeds his superior intelligence, again unlike most humans.

In terms of the Planet of The Apes franchisee, it is similar to the fourth film -Conquest Of The Planet of the Apes. Those following the film closely will see a foreshadowing of the first Charlton Heston movie, which will perhaps follow ROTPOTA, either immediately or after a few films. In essence though, this has the humanism of ‘The Elephant Man’ and is the closest any film in the franchisee has come to the basic premise of the first film –revolution against injustice and the stupidity of humans. 

This review is written for, and hence copyrighted by Indo-Asian News Service.