Lion King – 3D Excuses To Revisit This Masterpiece

Director: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff

Voiceovers: Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons and James Earl Jones

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Once there was a lion cub who accidentally got dropped amidst sheep and grew up believing and bawling like sheep. One day when a group of lion waylaid him and asked what a lion was doing amidst sheep, he shivered for his life and said he was a sheep. They told him he was a lion and asked him to roar, but to no avail.

Dejected, the lions left. Till later that day, looking at his reflection he realized who he truly was and roared and found his true place in the circle of life. It is this story that inspired Swami Vivekananda to say: O lions, shake of the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal.

Everyone's ground in the circle of life - all the characters from Lion King in one poster. 

And it is perhaps this fable and this saying, that gave birth to a little animation film that with its impeccable dialogues, life altering lyrics, perfectly etched characters and a truthful demeanor, waltzed itself into the hearts and minds of millions. The circle of life has brought that classic back to the theaters over a decade and half later – this time in 3D. 

It is never too late to revisit an eternal classic, no reason small enough, no excuse untenable in this pursuit. Hence, even though Lion King comes draped in the excuse of 3D, it deserves a revisit in theatres.

After falsely considering himself to be the reason for his fathers death, the heir to the throne, lion prince Simba, runs away. In the meantime his uncle Scar takes over the kingdom while his pals - the hyenas, ransack everything. One day, the prodigal son returns to take his rightful place.

With a film like Lion King that is strong on all elements that make for good, enduring cinema, its visual dimension – 2D or 3D - does not matter. Still, being restored in new 3D version becomes good enough reason for lovers of this classic to pay a reverent visit to the theatres to glimpse this spectacle. Also it is time, that those who grew up on this film, share its pleasure with their children.

Lion King is as perfect a children’s film as there ever was or perhaps can be. It is simple in its storyline, yet has depth and lessons that ring true for young and old. And it delivers these without being pedagogical. Add to it the songs of Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice and Music by Hans Zimmer and you have yourself a one in a million film.

Lion King in its 90 minutes duration, teaches kids more about love of life on earth than a year of National Geographic or Animal Kingdom can. It also teaches more about courage, dignity, valour and honour than any number of years of school teaching can.

These are two of the greatest strengths of this magnificently imagined and directed film that satisfies at the cinematic, emotional and intellectual level at the same time. The reason for it ageless spirit is also because it is a metaphor against fear telling us that it is only by conquering our fears, no matter what they are, can we take our rightful place in the circle of life.

A song in the film rightly says, ‘There’s more to be seen, than could ever be seen.” Make sure that Lion King in theatres is one of those things that you do not fail to see in this lifetime. 

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

The Tree Of Life – Masterful Creation

A shorter version of this review was written for Indo-Asian News Service (IANS).

Director: Terrence Malick
Actors: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain
Rating: 4 out of 5

We might leave our childhood, but it never leaves us. It follows us, taunts and haunts us, often presenting no scope for absolution. And it is this haunting that auteur Terrence Malick presents with a camera that is as discerningly close to his characters as it is detached from the entire human condition when it looks at life and creation in both microscopic and macroscopic visions.

At the beginning of the film, we see a light and a few words that says that there are two ways of living life - the way of nature (human nature) where you take and are mean to others, and the other is of grace, where you suffer but where, there is hope for absolution. The film is a journey of absolution for Jack, whose ruminations is based on the Biblical Job from the ‘Book of Job’.

Through a series of hallucinations Jack (Sean Penn) recollects his childhood of growing up in a small town and a younger brother he was close to who died when he was still young. In through the agony of Jack the film travels further back in time, (once even into the future), into the childhood of planet earth itself, right from its creation, infancy to the time when it became the ‘tree of life’.

For a film of just over two hours, this has the ambitions of one that never ends. In its short span it tries to encompass everything, love, bliss, agony, loss, pain, ambition, control, origin of earth, life, violence, death… to create a film that is as much grounded as it is a fantasy.

Terrance Malick is a man in control of his medium. He has demonstrated his artistry in films made, it seems, only when he has something to say leading once to a gap of two decades in his career. And here, in ‘The Tree of Life’ you see Malick at the helm of his craft so far. Only a man in total awareness of the grammar of cinema can attempt to bend them or even try and create something more as he does here.

With visuals that are mesmerizing, and surprising if you are aware that they were not created through CGI, the film creates the tranquility and turmoil of the soul through the images of space and volcanoes. In that it becomes a film to be seen in theatres, and not at your home. The full intensity of those images, the back ground score directing them and through them all the violence and absolution that the story wants to convey, comes out best in the darkness of the theatre. And in that dark magic of cinema, if you are feeling more than you are thinking, you might find yourself crying.

Malick’s camerawork could be extremely disconcerting to someone taken aback by its difference, and very liberating for others. His camera is so intimately close to his characters, you often wonder how the actors can act amidst such infringement. Even the most daring directors in the history of creative cinema, have not dared to go so close for so long. And succeeded.

Malick’s intimate camera thus throws the discomfort of his characters right at your face with every twitch, every move blowing up on screen. In contrast he gives you a macroscopic view of the universe, and a microscopic view of the birth of life. This back and forth, this reliance on seemingly unrelated visuals, might be a little disconcerting for the average viewer of cinema. But be patient, even if you don’t fully understand, the rewards will be well worth it.

And it is this attempt at making his audiences understand, that is the biggest flaw of the film. It uses words far too many than were needed. That might seem a strange accusation for a film that has very few dialogues anyways. Sadly when something is in short supply, whatever is presented acquires greater significance. Malick tries his hands at explanation and resolution, using religion and the ‘Book of Job’ and that is where he falters.

Indeed, the film can be called a modern interpretation of the ‘Book of Job’ with Job’s character being played by Jack who like Job has theological discussions albeit with himself on the nature of life, his suffering and his anger with god for making him suffer. Like Job, he even asks god the question, ‘where were you when…’ the answer to which is given in the very first quote presented on the screen and the visuals of the earth’s creation that come later. That is perhaps gods answer to Job and Jack and that is the final absolution.

Thus, if you are the religious kind, or if one of your overarching concerns is why bad things happen to good people, like it was for the Biblical Job, this is a film custom-made for you. Indeed, in the galactic scenes, or of the earth’s history that Malick presents, you might even find god’s response to your queries like Job does at the end of his trials.

Cinematically though, his explanations using words, feel like sore notes in an otherwise masterful composition, unnecessary lines and colours in a Van Gogh painting. Malick did not need to say it, when he is literally showing it. Remove that, and you have perhaps one of the most perfect films ever made in filmdom.

In the last scene of the film, the same light that was flickering in the beginning appears, but there is no dialogue this time, just silence. That silence was needed a little more in the film.

Also, one might find it strange, but for a film that uses a different grammar, it does offer an absolution in the end. In one of Jack’s hallucinatory wandering, he meets everyone from his childhood, including his own childhood self, near a sea. Here he unites with his father, and most importantly he unites his dead young brother to his mother who thanks him. And in one scene, we see that the hand the mother is touching of Jack, is old and wrinkled signifying that the film has now travelled into the future and Jack does not find this absolution till he is old and about to die. The setting of this scene, near the ocean is also significant, considering that it is the sea, that is the cradle, or the tree of life for earth where the first life forms emerged, and it is thus to the sea where all must perhaps finally merge. It can also be looked at as an allegorical sea of tranquility where we all must go after our end.

And it is this absolution that might be another drawback. For not many of us find that absolution, now or at the far end of our life. Perhaps it is Malick who is seeking that absolution and his wishful thinking finds representation in the film.

Audiences going in to watch Brad Pitt and Sean Penn need to be wary. Pitt is perfect both in his toughened and vulnerable state and Penn is agonizingly good in his small role. But the film is not about them. It is about life and if there’s one thing life teaches, it is patience. Those without patience to try and feel, not understand a truly ‘different’ film will find this one excruciatingly painful. The rest will soar.

'Zindagi...' - Honest, Funny but Lacking 'Zindagi'

This review has been written for and is thus copyrighted by the wire service IANS. All rights reserved by them. 


Director: Zoya Akhtar;
Actors: Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akthar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif;
Rating: ***1/2

First the good news. "Zindagi…" is one of the most nuanced, evenly paced and well executed films in commercial Indian cinema. This cross between "Dil Chahta Hai" and "Sideways" is funny and honest, but it is marred by one fundamental flaw - it has nothing important to say.

Yes, to a select few, neo-rich one percent of its audience who find nirvana swimming under Spanish seas or for whom freedom is feeling the wind in your hand from a high speed car, the message is loud and clear - you only live once so live it full. But one has to wonder, should a commercial film be made keeping just one percent of the audience in mind?

Yes, it is a message that everyone else needs as well, but should that message ride on a pleasure trip through Spanish landscape where there is beauty but no 'zindagi' or should it have been closer home, in the squalor and madness and 'life' of this nation.

Three old friends - Arjun (Hritik Roshan), Imran (Farhan Akthar) and Kabir (Abhay Deol) - go on a three-week bachelor's road trip through Spain before Kabir's marriage, only to come face to face with their own fears and insecurities.

Globally there are too many road-trip films for Zoya Akhtar to bring anything new to the cinematic table. What she could have done was to have enough emotional pull for the viewer to empathise with the characters. But would you empathise with the fatherly, marriage-related and heartbreak problems of three rich men who really have everything going for them? Besides its one percent audience, the rest would find the existential angst of these three men, a creation of their own vanity.

Not more than 1% Indians can play 'Holi' with tomatoes in Spain. Zindagi... has zindagi for this 1%. 

Yet, besides its many flaws, dishonesty is not one of them. It's an honest film about the type of people the filmmaker interacts with daily. Sadly, that is perhaps the only cross section of society that Zoya Akhtar has known in her urban living. The problem with the film is thus the problem in the worldview of its maker, which is extremely limited in scope. And that is a shame because Zoya is a nuanced and refined filmmaker. She could do wonders with a story that is real and about real men and women.

"Zindagi…" thus actually ends up being like a big-budget film with the heart and audience of a small-budget indie. And that mismatch will perhaps do the film in at the box office.

Cinematically though, Zoya does try desperately to transcend the obvious, to mean the message rather than say it, like say a "Sideways" or "Lost in Translation" does. And though she knocks on the door of this transcendence, she is unable to pass through.

Commercial filmmakers in the past, either came from the grassroots like a Mehboob or Guru Dutt, or were concerned about it like Raj Kapoor. Their films hence reflected - sometimes directly - and often in the films written by Zoya's father Javed Akthar, allegorically, the angst, pain and the struggle for survival of the nation's teeming masses.

Sadly, as their world ended up becoming cocooned from life around, the connection their kids had with reality, became limited. The result are some really well made films, but ones with 'zindagi' only in their titles, not in their guts.

Bollywoods Latest Renegade Entrant

An edited version of this appeared in Open Magazine titled "Tanu, Manu and The Real Stuff".

Bollywoods Latest Renegade Entrant

Aanand L. Rai - director Tanu Weds Manu - has learnt his success lessons the hard way, making him the latest entrant into Bollywood’s renegade space

“Anurag Kashyap and Dibakar Banerjee are the Bhagat Singh’s of Bollywood. They fight for their films. And you know even if their films flop at the box office, you will take something home from it.” Aanand L. Rai, the latest toast of Bolly-town after the success of Tanu Weds Manu (TWM), says this as we sit chatting sweet-nothings after the interview.

For an hour before, he faced a volley of questions, some clichéd some tough, with answers every entertainment journalist has heard endlessly. Some are so unoriginal that you end up wondering, if like his first two films, TWM is also somehow ‘inspired’.

But sensibility soon kicks in. A film that physically touches you cannot be a copy. For if nothing else, TWM smells of small town India, its maddening crowds, its towering insecurity of getting its girls married even if you have to cheat for it, of perennially eves-dropping friends making privacy a priviledge, of quirky idiosyncrasies hard to imagine but that does indeed exist. As any decent man of the arts will tell you; stories are rarely original, their execution can always be.

And Tanu Weds Manu reeks of an original, creative execution of a simple, heartfelt, men-are-from-mars-women-from-venus story. But you shake your head in disbelief, where did the film originate from in the first place?

First let’s get Aanand’s clichés out of the way: someone offered him a bigger star for TWM but he wanted to be in character and chose his cast, he could have had a bigger budget but that would have killed the films original look, Kangana Ranaut has given her best performance till date, he simply wanted to tell a story well without worrying about success, his producers Viacom 18 has been extremely supportive of his creative vision, he made the film without pressure etc. 

Yet, beyond these, to find the real Aanand L Rai, you have to go into his past. To understand the Aanand of TWM versus the one who made his first two films, you have to understand Bollywood’s success formula, and how that is changing drastically. For hidden behind this is a sweeping, but under-the-carpet change occurring in Bollywood.

Aanand L. Rai, showing how to bowl a cinematic doosra' - Photo by Satyen K. Bordoloi

First we take Aanand - the man. He comes from a typical middle class, Indian family full of hopes from their children, and noisy relatives, to whom he credits the real feel of TWM. In his own words, he saw India on yearly two month long LTC holidays of his parents, both of whom were teachers. Typical of Indian middle class aspiration, his parents packed him off to Nanded to do his engineering. But he knew where his heart lay - with his brother Ravi Rai who was doing television in Bombay. Hence, the day his engineering ended, in 1994, he landed at his brother’s doorsteps. “I did not even take a break to relax at home in Delhi. I knew if I went there, I’d have to look for a job, one thing would have led to the other and I would have had to miss out on my dreams,” he now says. It was the first gentle act of rebellion, that perhaps prepared him for what was to come later.

It helped to have a brother doing television in tinsel-town and he blended in perfectly. “Those were the golden days of TV in India and unlike today it was not merely conversion of visuals to money. There was creative satisfaction for everyone - writers, directors and producers.” Aanand ended up doing all three for television and with his brother Ravi Rai created some path breaking serials like ‘Sailaab’, ‘Thoda Hai Thode Ki Zaroorat Hai’, and ‘Sparsh’ among others.

With liberalization sinking its teeth deep into everything, including the medium of television, creativity nosedived and TV serials became assembly line productions. Aanand quit TV in 2001 and spent the next couple of years prepping himself for a stint in cinema. What he did not know then was that from 2001, he’d take another decade to find his own footing in filmdom. And that it will have nothing to do with his own strength or weakness, but the way Indian commercial cinema had become. 

In the first decade of the new millennium, if you consider the 10 highest grossing films of each year, over 50% have been from what we all know as ‘inspired’ films, mostly Indianized copies of Hollywood films, and sometimes Europe and now even east of south-east Asian films. Both old timers and new entrants have given in to this tacit formula.

A good example of the same is Aanand whose first theatrical film (he has made and hour long telefilm ‘One Night Stand’ for Star One) ‘Strangers’ was a take on Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Strangers on a Train’ with generous dosage of change from the original. Same with his second film – ‘Thodi Life Thoda Magic’, that looks oddly familiar to the Eddie Murphy starrer ‘Holy Man’. Both films were major box office duds.

It is at this point, the story of Aanand L Rai, takes a very interesting twist in the tale. While many like him have continued on this well-trodden path, Aanand was sensible. “I realized I was not connecting with the audience. I had become indulgent. I was not telling their story. For TWM, that was my most important task,” he says. So the two men – Aanand and his writer Himanshu Sharma - decided to find inspiration from their own lives with characters so rooted in reality that one could find them in our own family or friend circle. This became the major reason behind the success of Tanu Weds Manu. 

Go watch TMW at any single screen theatre, especially in North India, and you will notice how well he has connected with the Indian aspiration and reality. Girls hoot when Kangana says that she prefers any kind of partner - if a man is not available a woman would do. The theatre is in splits when Madhavan and his friend, on entering a Punjabi home in the throes of marriage, are asked to mount a horse to go from the gate to its veranda.

Like any Anurag Kashyap or Dibakar Banerjee film and unlike the sanitized studio spaces of a Yash Raj or Dharma Production film, something is always happening in the background making the film dense with life

“I wanted to create a simple, transparent, honest space with all its flaws and quirks. I am the king of that space and if you like something in it, that’s me and if you didn’t I’m to blame for the same,” Aanand says.

What he means, but does not articulate in deliberate words, is that for the first time in his three film long career he is in absolute command of his craft and cinema. Call it the case of twice unlucky, third time shy, but he has turned towards a kind of creative space, that Bollywood is gradually shifting towards where originality and rootedness call the shots, and not an inspiration from someone else’s work.

Thus, like Aanand says about the likes of Anurag and Dibakar, you have on one side these renegade band of filmmakers who after years and years of creative struggle are finally in a position to demand their own terms and turfs, on the other side you have those like Aanand that have tried to blend in to Bollywood’s ‘inspired-by’ standards, only to realize that they not only can, but have to trust their own instincts of creation.

If you can call it so, this merging of different creative spaces has created a new renegade space in Bollywood, wherein lies - as the success of many of these films in 2010 pitted against the corresponding failures of biggies has shown - the hope and prospects of Bollywood that goes beyond the meaningless rhetoric of India being the largest film producing nation in the world. In its womb lies the potential that will truly create an Indian film industry that is at par with global standards, both in creativity and production.

And this band, unlike the proponents of parallel cinema of the 70s and 80s, are very conscious about the financial angle. Dibakar Banerjee had told Open Magazine (Scheduled Cast – 31 Jan, 2011 issue) that unless a small budget film achieves a substantial multiplier on investment, the mainstream will not take notice. Aanand echoes the sentiment, “The conversion of creativity to money is very important. Filmmaking is not my hobby, it is someone’s business.” With a budget of 17 crores (production and P&A), TMW theatrically made a gross of 18 crores in the first weekend itself. With few films releasing till the cricket world cup gets over, TWM will enjoy a longer stay at theatrical screens, leaving no doubts that the film would be a hit theatrically. Add to it peripherals like satellite rights and overseas sales, and you have a sure-shot winner in hand.

But what does success mean to this man who has seen his share of upheavals in life. “My ten year old daughter passes Cinemax daily to go to school. During ‘Strangers’she was upset that the poster was taken out in a week while anther films’ poster hung longer. I had promised her then that one day my film will last longer than others. Today I see her beaming face every time she sees a TWM poster or when her teachers tell her that her dad has made a good film - that is my biggest happiness.”

Today, Aanand is a relaxed man. He looks forward to finally fulfilling his dream of working with Vidya Balan and Shahrukh Khan. He had approached Vidya for ‘Strangers’, before she had became successful. As for Shahrukh he says, “I have a story idea that only he can do. Inshallah if I get the chance I would love to narrate it to him.” 

For the time being though, beyond the congratulatory calls from the industry, he has already got many offers. But he is in no hurry, “I will take my time choosing the next project. I want to work fearlessly,” says this latest Bollywood rebel. “My fight is different from others. I will fight gently, like Gandhi,” he says adding, “I have made it a point to be on the ground. Nothing will change internally. I have learnt my lessons. I will tell the story the way I want to.” A message others wanting to make their mark in Bollywood, would do well to heed to. 

Chillar Party – Small Film, Huge Heart & Talent

A smaller version has been written for and is copyrighted by IANS. Please don’t copy, paste this without giving reference to them.

  

Directors: Vikas Bahl, Nitesh Tiwari

Actors: Irrfan Khan, Sanath Menon, Naman Jain, Rohan Grover, Aarav Khanna, Vishesh Tiwari, Chinmai Chandranshuh, Vedant Desai, Divji Handa, Sherya Sharma

Rating: 4 out of 5

At a point in American history, dogs and blacks were not allowed in public places. During the British occupation of China, it was ‘dogs and Chinese’ while at the first Mumbai marathon the rule was against dogs and wheelchairs. A dog, overtime in history, has thus become a metaphor for seclusion, for denying someone their fundamental rights.

Chillar Party uses this metaphor in a brilliant, but hilariously entertaining manner to make a statement against those who seclude, be it Shiv Sena in Mumbai, fanatic Hindus who want Muslims out of India, or upper class Hindus who refuse lower caste people their basic rights etc. That it does so while making you laugh is one of its greatest strengths.

After a street kid Phatka (Irrfan Khan) and his stray dog Bhidu begins cleaning cars in a rich locality, a gang of rich, school going kids nick-named ‘Chillar Party’ first try to fend him off using various trick. However, when they realize the full extent of the poor kids and his dogs situation, they become great buddies. On a trip to the locality, a minister’s PA tries to shoo off Phatka, as he is a street kid but his attempt is thwarted by the ferocious Bhidu.

Insulted, the minister vows revenge and passes a law to ban all street dogs from Mumbai. Realizing that the dog was right in doing what he did, the kids decide to take up the challenge to ensure that the dog continues to stays in their locality. The adults, however, are apathetic to their ‘small’ cause. The kids realize they need to do something drastic and they resort to some unconventional activism. But the minister is in no mood to relent and he ups the pressure on the locality to now evict even the slum kid along with his dog. Would the powerless kids, whom even their parents don’t listen to, manage to take on the high and mighty minister?

Salman Khan, literally flexing his muscle to support this small, beautiful film and for once his toplessness is worth the cause.  

Chillar Party, in essence, is a children’s film. But those who can read between the lines and see between pictures know that the most brilliant, imaginative and metaphorical literature and cinema in the world, are for kids. Thus in literature you have your ‘The Prince’ and ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ among many others, in cinema you have the seemingly ‘children’s’ films of Iranian auteurs which though simple and innocent at the surface, attacks an unjust system. Chillar Party is a welcome addition to these greats of world cinema. And in a nation like India with the world’s second largest children population, that barely makes any good films for them, this is more than a welcome film.

Yet, what does a children’s film need to have to be good. Simple story, good metaphor, oodles of cuteness and innocence, fun and humour and a band of actors to carry it all off. If you have these, any other drawbacks can be excused. And though Chillar Party has its drawbacks, these elements handled with simplicity and flair, makes it a thrilling experience.

The film is filled with observations and idiosyncrasies that will leave you laughing your guts out. Every kid in the film has acted with such restrained understatement that they give your popular stars a run for their hammed money. And yet beyond all these beautifully working elements, it is the metaphor of the dog that takes the prize.

Unlike nature, the world of humans is full of seclusion. Thus a Bal Thackeray in the 60s wants the South Indians, in the 90s the Muslims, and now the North Indians out of Mumbai. Fanatic Hindus want Muslims out of India. The Americans wanted blacks out of America. The Australians want Indians out. The Sri Lankans want the Tamils out. The ‘normal’ able bodied people don’t want to see the handicapped amidst them. The list is literally endless. But as the film so valiantly, sincerely and emotionally argues, what is needed in every sphere is not mere toleration, but the understanding of the underdog that can lead to their full inclusion and acceptance in society, no matter how different they seem from us.

Chillar Party is filled with allegorical moments that hint at how the poor, the disenfranchised, the adivasi, the handicapped, the minority survive. When the rich kids take away his cleaning cloth, Phatka has no qualms about washing cars with his only tshirt. The rich consider poor to be pests and want them out, but the poor strive and ironically serve the same rich. Some, pushed to the edge, take up arms against mighty odds, like in the tribal belts of India where the Naxalite problem is nothing but the fight of the disenfranchised against a corrupt system that has totally neglected them forever.

The film is a treasure trove of metaphors. While the rich people live in big homes and have big cars, it is washed by a kid they do not care about who lives in an old, dilapidated car. While their kids play with remote controlled cars, the poor boy does not even have anything to protect himself from the rain. Yet, when the slum kid brings out these differences, he ends up becoming a counselor to the rich kids who realize how fortunate they are, in comparison to him. This is done so gently and subtly in the film, that unlike ‘Stanley Ka Dabba’ where the end seems cooked up, it blends in perfectly.

The film also becomes a crash-course in activism for urban, unconcerned audiences. And it is the kids and their innocence that show the way. “There's a point where anyone can become an activist. You see something so wrong, you have to act. Even if it means the end of you," says a character in the Mel Gibson starrer 'Edge of Darkness. Sadly, adults have become so unmoved by so many wrongs around them, that forget acting on it, they don’t even notice it. That it is the kids who unlike their parents are not driven by any ulterior movies, notice one wrong, and despite the insurmountable odds decide to fight for something they believe is right, is a statement on all non-kids.

That the kids, to right a little wrong, take to the streets in a very democratic, Gandhian ways, can perhaps pave the way for adults to learn lessons to do the same, to get more conscious and perhaps concerned about the world around and the plight of voiceless all around them. They could do well to remember what one kid says, “when you are doing something right, even if you get beaten a bit, it’s okay.”

The film is nuanced, hilarious, gentle and observational in its humour, and does not get self-conscious in making a statement and commentary against the ills of the society. And though like any children’s film it is sweet in its temperament, its sweetness is that of a sugar coating over a bitter pill. Thankfully, the film is emotional and not overtly logical in its argument, something that art is supposed to be and do.

Besides saluting the creative genius of writer-director Vikas Bahl and Nitesh Tiwari, one has to bow to UTV and Salman Khan, for flexing their muscles (literally for Salman Khan) for a film that maybe small, but that as cinema goes, is much more mature than 99% films ever made in the country. And that, you’ll reckon, is no ‘small’ achievement. 

The kids march to save the dog ‘Bhidu’. Who is Bhidu? Bhidu is your poor slum dweller, the tribal of India, the handicapped, the dalits, the minorities, the girl child in a masculine home, the Muslim in a Hindu India, the Indian in Australia. Listen to the kids and please, for your own sakes, Save Bhidu. 

Delhi Belly – Wicked Voice of New India

This review is copyrighted to IANS. Do not repost or copy without their permission. 

Director: Abhinay Deo

Actors: Imran Khan, Vir Das, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Vijay Raaz

Rating: 4 out of 5

It is a cliché as old as this nation - of the many Indias that breathe under one India. Indian cinema has hardly been representatives of even a few of these. Yet, one would have expected, after globalization and the emergence of a new bold, urban India, that at least this class would get representation in commercial cinema.

Though there have been successful attempts in the past, it is with Delly Belly that the urban, money-is-everything, foulmouthed India has been captured with aplomb. And that, depending upon your morality, is good or bad.

Tashi, a Delhi based journalist living filthily with two roommates, winds up with a bunch of ‘desi’ goons chasing him and his mates after a mix-up. The three are forced to navigate the dark underbelly to survive, while encountering one situation after another and one idiosyncratic Indian after another.

The beauty of Abhinav Deo’s film is not its smooth story, loosely inspired by the type of films made famous by Guy Ritchie, ‘Lock Stock..’ and ‘Snatch’ among others, neither is it Ram Sampath’s catchy music that beats to the rhythm of the film, or the slick, seamless direction, or its immaculate casting and performance or even its wickedly witty dialogues. The true beauty of the film is in all these elements together creating a madcap image of a new, unabashed, even shameless section of India.

A shot that is slated to become as iconic as the last shot in Mahesh Bhatt's Aashiqui. 

Though Delhi is referred to in its title, it is not the real Delhi that Dibakar Banerjee captures with satirical reality in his films. Instead, it is the image of a Delhi populated by young, educated, newly ‘liberated’ urbanites. In that it is the splitting image of that young urban India anywhere perpetually churning like the stomach of a character in the film, a showcasing of this nations new neo-liberal underbelly.

However, the other Indias might not take kindly to the film. Hypocritical Indians okay with female infanticide and dowry would be aghast at how almost every ‘bad’ word that they know is spoken everywhere on the streets and in homes, finds a place in the usually moralistic Bolllywood. Cinema purists too may cry foul that the film does not really have a soul and is not really trying to say anything. Though a legitimate accusation, in not having a soul and not really being concerned or serious about anything, the film holds a mirror to a large section of the country. And that is a big statement in itself.

For decades Indian cinema has been shackled with a morality that has not kept pace with the changing morality of life around. Though the morality of the film is strictly of urban, young, middleclass India, and isn’t representative, it is welcome as this is the farthest Bollywood has gone to truly representing urban life. And just for that, hats off to Aamir Khan for yet again, after Peepli Live and Dhobi Ghat, believing in a different kind of cinema, even while he doles out a Ghajini in the same breath.

The last scene of Delly Belly is bound to become as iconic as the one in Mahesh Bhatt’s 1990 musical ‘Aashiqui’. If there the lovers were so embarrassed of their surroundings that they had to kiss under a coat, here the lovers who are not even girlfriend-boyfriend are so brazen and caught in the heat of the moment that the guy kisses the girl in full view, half his body hanging out a slowly moving Maruti car symbolic of old India, unconcerned whether others are looking (which they are not). If that isn’t the urban, chic, and unconcerned-about-others India that has moved away from the morality of an un-liberalized India in ‘Aashiqui’ then what is? 

Scheduled Cast

This feature on the success of small budget films in India, was published in Open Magazine, in their 22nd Jan, 2011 issue. 

Almost every big-budget movie is losing money in Bollywood. And yet, even if a small-budget movie makes thrice its cost, the industry does not count it as a blockbuster. Welcome to the warped economics of la-la-land

HIT

Welcome to the warped economics of la-la-land

Atul Mongia WAS one of the three people most responsible for the making, look and feel of the most unusual film to emerge from Bollywood last year. As casting director, Atul had handpicked each of the movie’s actors, but his role didn’t end there. He trained the cast for three months, doubled as an assistant director, and even did a bit role in the film. By the time he saw the first cut, Atul knew it would be critically appreciated. But that it would make a lot of money never once occurred to him.

“I think it finally sank in on the third week of its theatrical run,” says Atul, “I watched a midweek afternoon show that was half packed. I saw people laugh and be stunned at just the right moment.” He is talking about a film whose entire budget was less than that of an extravagant Bollywood song. Though India has seen small-budget films in the past, all of them tried cheaper alternatives to Bollywood’s established rules. This film abandoned conventions. Not only did it not have one steady shot, it was almost entirely shot by the actors themselves with no one else in the room to say “action” or “cut”. It did not have a song, or stars, or even mediocre sets constructed for it.

The film was Dibakar Banerjee’s B-grade sounding film Love Sex aur Dhokha (LSD). Atul gave six months of his life to LSD for a paltry sum which he does not want printed. He says the budget was not on his or anyone’s mind when they were making the film. “The success of the film landed me so many offers,” he says, “that it’s almost like getting a royalty on LSD.” The film was made at an unbelievable production budget of Rs 1.5 crore, with its total budget including prints and publicity being only Rs 4 crore. The film made Rs 14 crore odd. And yet, for a movie that made triple of what it used up, LSD is not considered a ‘blockbuster’ in Bollywood.

Or consider this. According to media reports, a song for the Salman Khan flop Veer cost Rs 3.5 crore, took 11 days and 600 extras to shoot. Meanwhile, the entire production budget of Phas Gaye Re Obama was Rs 3 crore. The movie was shot in one month with a cast and crew of 100 people. Re Obama has made about Rs 5 crore so far, while Veer barely recovered half its cost of Rs 50 crore. But no one in Bollywood calls Re Obama a superhit.

“Nobody knows the definition of a Bollywood blockbuster,” says Komal Nahta, trade analyst and editor of KoiMoi.com and Film Information, “We follow a system where we define a hit as a film that has made double its cost. A superhit is one that more than doubles the investment, and blockbuster is almost two-and-a-half to three times.Dabanng is a superhit, 3 Idiots is a blockbuster.” For the record, he calls LSD a hit despite its having made more than thrice its total cost.

This vagueness of definition and reluctance to call small-budget films ‘blockbusters’ reveals two characteristics of Bollywood—their resistance to acknowledge change and obsession with all things big; big sets, big stars, big budgets. Big, however, does not work most of the time. LSD’s success stands out after a year in which all things big fell like dominoes. Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish, made with two of India’s biggest stars—Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai—on a total budget of Rs 75 crore, took home just Rs 40 crore. Mani Ratnam’sRaavan, with Aishwarya and Abhishek Bachchan, soaked up a good Rs 50 crore but made only Rs 30 crore. The cost of the Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra starrer Anjaana, Anjaani: Rs 43 crore. It made less than half of it. Kites, Action Replay, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey…the list could go on. Nahta estimates Bollywood’s 2010 losses at Rs 475 crore.

On the other hand, audience response to the few independent filmmakers who took a parallel route has taken everyone by surprise. Some of these small films have become ‘blockbusters’ by Nahta’s definition. Besides LSD, there’s Peepli Live (production budget: Rs 5.3 crore; theatrical recovery: Rs 18 crore) and Tere Bin Laden(production: Rs 5 crore; recovery: Rs 13 crore). Others like Do Dooni Char (budget: Rs 7 crore) and Udaan (Rs 3 crore) recovered their money at the box office. Yet, says Anusha Rizvi, co-director of Peepli Live, which is also this year’s official Indian entry to the Oscars: “Had it been a year where the big films had done equally well, the small films, despite their success, would have been sidelined.”

HOW TO MAKE A BLOCKBUSTER WITH FIVE CRORE

Anurag Kashyap, the patron saint of ‘indie films’ as this genre is called, makes his films at obscenely low budgets. Most have been made for under a million dollars (Rs 4.5 crore). Even his bigger films have been just over that limit, with No Smoking at Rs 7 crore and Dev.D at Rs 6 crore. “To make a film, you really don’t need to spend too much money,” he says, “Sadly, Bollywood spends its money in the wrong places like sets, expensive costumes and payment of stars.”

A million dollar film takes hard work. First, you bump up against the Bollywood mindset. Logic would dictate that a cheaper movie is easier to make since you have less funds to raise. But that doesn’t hold. Ask Pooja Shetty Deora, who comes from an old-guard Bollywood family. Her father Manmohan Shetty owned Adlabs before he sold it off and started Walkwater Media, a film production house. When Pooja and her sister wanted to produce Tere Bin Laden, they found their father reluctant. He gave his nod but no thumbs up. “Four days before the release of the film, he finally said that he liked it,” says Pooja, “His validation was extremely important to us, but it came once the cat was out of the bag.” She admits that they were a bit naïve about how they went about the film. “We went against a lot of traditional Bollywood wisdom that told us not to release the trailers too early, or try our best to introduce a love angle. We did none of it. Our focus was more on the story. It was an intuitive approach.” She is honest enough, however, to admit that “one successful film does not mean anything”; “Give us ten years and we’ll know.”

Kiran Rao, director of Dhobi Ghat (production budget: Rs 5 crore), uses the term ‘guerilla filmmaking’ on being asked to describe how she kept her budget low. This means grabbing whatever is available cheap—like real locations and crowds who don’t have to be paid.

Low-budget filmmakers are the wild bunch on the periphery of Bollywood. They travel cattle class on trains, stay in decrepit hotels for shoots, eat cheap food on leaf plates, provide no vanity vans to their leads, and prefer choking to death than spending crores on a song. Scrounging for cash spells problems, of course. Dibakar Banerjee welcomes these. He even has a theory of constraints. “Without constraints, no creative effort can survive,” he says, “A director with an unlimited budget will not even be able to get off his chair and start shooting. So the biggest factor that makes a film happen and differentiates it from others is this constraint, for it decides the creative solution that a maker finds for his film.”

Then there’s marketing and promotion, the third necessity for a small-budget blockbuster. Both LSD and Peepli Live had great marketing. “Besides Aamir Khan and Ekta Kapoor, most have not yet realised how crucial effective marketing is for a film,” says Dibakar. “Good, intelligent, low-budget films by themselves don’t do much. They have to be marketed extremely intelligently to maximise their value.”

What about stars, the pivot around which the blockbuster myth perpetuates itself in Bollywood? Do they matter for a small movie? “The only major advantage of a big star is that publicity gets taken care of without the producers having to worry too much about it,” says Abhishek Sharma, the 32-year-old director of Tere Bin Laden. “Finally, the audience is all important. They have to be entertained. Sometimes you do it with a brilliant script and unknown cast, and sometimes a good story with a star. Any combination or formula would do.”

THE SHOESTRING REVOLUTION

Films made on shoestring budgets have the potential to transform Bollywood. There is a precedent for this in Hollywood of the 1940s, when TV began to steal its profits and theatrical occupancy nosedived. Hollywood tried different things—stereo sound, cinemascope, the works—but couldn’t arrest the decline. Sounds familiar?

Then, a call for change blew in from overseas. As the French New Wave gained steam, many of their films found release in US theatres. Despite their limited budgets, need of subtitles and absence of stars, the 1960s films of auteurs like François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard surprised Hollywood. Eventually, they saw in this threat a window of opportunity. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, big Hollywood studios began to hand the directorial reins to a whole band of new, young and small-budget filmmakers. The math was simple. If a big-budget film cost 10 times a small one, instead of 10 big films a year, a studio could make just nine and spend the rest on another 10 small films. Most big Hollywood directors today—Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott—began frugally as part of that wave (it also includes Martin Scorsese, who refused to come to 2010’s Mumbai Film Festival because the organisers didn’t send him a chartered plane—tastes obviously change with success).

Now the big studios there have segregated their big budget and small films into different units. Thus, Warner Brothers has New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox has Fox Searchlight, and so on. Bollywood, too, is seeing the early days of this. UTV Motion Pictures, for example, has a subsidiary called UTV Spotboy with the explicit purpose of making clever low-budget films. Says Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO, Motion Pictures, UTV, “Under the Spotboy banner, we produce different films, films that big banners will not normally touch. And by nature, these films are made by new filmmakers and are low budget.” He cites the example of No One Killed Jessica, which had a medium production budget of Rs 9 crore, higher than typical indie but lower than regular Bollywood fare. UTV’s ratio is interesting. Of the 12 films slated for release in 2011, four are under Spotboy, with production budgets around the million dollar mark.

SMALL MERCIES

The blockbuster worldview of Bollywood, though, is not going to change anytime soon. Anusha Rizvi gives the example of the Star Screen Awards, where, despite Udaan winning the best film and director awards, most other big awards went to Bollywood’s big-budget low-grossers (even duds) and not small films that earned both critical acclaim and box office success.

Komal Nahta does not believe big budgets or stars are in any danger from indie cinema. His argument rests on big returns: “How much profit can you make from a small-budget film, two or three crore? Whereas, if a big-budget film clicks, the profit is [Rs] 10-20 crore. Yes, there’s a danger of equally big losses, but your dream of making a killing is only satisfied by a big-budget film. 3 Idiots makes a profit of [Rs] 60 crore. How many successful low-budget films would you have to make to dream of such a figure?”

To be taken seriously, then, the indie film will have to deliver a blockbuster by the time-honoured definition. Like, say, a Blair Witch Project abroad, which was made for a million dollars and ended up raking in $200 million. “We are still not able to get this kind of multiplier in India because of our inability to maximise the revenue capacity of a film,” says Dibakar Banerjee, “First, the number of theatres limits the possible profit of a film to an average of Rs 40 crore after overheads like taxes are considered. Now imagine a film made in Rs 4 crore that makes Rs 40 crore. This is the  kind of multiplier that will make the industry sit up and take notice and consciously try to make those kind of films.”

Even so, older, bigger banners are unable to ignore these new filmmakers and their audience profile. In 2010, Yash Raj made a dramatic U-turn of sorts with the indie feel of Band Baaja Baaraat, made for just over Rs 10 crore. It not only recovered its money, but also made a little profit for the studio that had no hit in 2010. Big stars are also no longer averse to taking up small films. Aamir Khan produced, vigorously promoted, released and made profits off Peepli Live. He hopes to recreate the magic with Dhobi Ghat.

“It has been worth it in the end,” sums up Anurag Kashyap. “Today, I get to make the films I want to make, without ever worrying about who’s in it, and I get the money to make it.” Anurag’s next Gangs of Wasseypur, starring Manoj Bajpai, has a budget of Rs 20 crore. “It spans a period of 60 years and will be shot in 22 cities,” he says, explaining this surge in budget. His next, Bombay Velvet, set in Bombay of the 1960s, is expected to have an even bigger budget. Raj Kumar Gupta, on the basis of only one film, Aamir, swung himself a Rs 9 crore production budget for No One Killed Jessica, while Dibakar is making his next, Shanghai, for Rs 10 crore. A possible blockbuster, if only the industry will call it that.