Classics Revisited

Gems of Indian Cinema

Pyaasa (Thirsting)

Cinema is an excellent medium to transfer one's thoughts and ideals, quite often we see the filmmaker compromising his ideals to appease the producer and the audience to make his movie a commercial success. Very rarely do we get to see a director becoming the very movie, that he makes, so that the movie and the maker become a single entity.

Guru Dutt Shiv Shankar Padukone was born in Bangalore on July 9, 1925. As far as the Western world was concerned Indian cinema was just song-dance and sentiment, except for Satyajit Ray's works, which were systematically segregated and treated as a separate entity. In my opinion Guru Dutt is the most misunderstood and talented filmmaker in Indian cinema. Like Shakespeare's tragic heroes, he was a great man with a tragic flaw. He accepted defeat too quickly, found solace in alcohol, failed in love and commited suicide. He was found dead on October 10, 1964, he had taken an overdose of sleeping pills mixed with alcohol, nobody knows if it was deliberate or if it was an accident.

Guru Dutt made several films for Dev Anand's NavKetan Productions, like Baazi, Baaz and Jaal. He tasted commercial success with Mr. and Mrs. 55 a sweet comedy which pitted him with Madhubala. The commercial success of Mr & Mrs 55, helped him in producing his Pyaasa.

Pyaasa was the tale of a struggling poet-Vijay, who is rejected by all publishers, and considered as a failure by his family. In anger and frustration his brother sells Vijay's poems to a scrap merchant. Vijay is devastated as he fails to find his manuscripts, one day he hears one of his compositions. He is attracted by the melodious voice and finds that the singer is a courtesan / prostitute Gulabo(Waheeda Rahman).

Vijay's love interest Meena, ditches him and marries a successful publisher, Vijay also learns that his mother is dead. He is depressed and disgusted with his life, he finds solace in alcohol and his only friend is a oil-masseur Johnny Walker(Remember "Sar Jo Ters Chakraye.."). One night he gives his coat to a beggar, the beggar is shocked and follows Vijay to thank him, but he is run-over by a train. The next day when the badly disfigured body is discovered with Vijay's coat on it, people assume that Vijay is the one who died in the accident.

Gulabo publishes Vijay's poems in a book titled "Parchaaiyan" (Shadows), through Mr. Ghosh(played by Rehman). The book becomes a big success, and Vijay who was shunned by everyone becomes a celebrity. Vijay is praised and a ceremony is held to honour him posthumously. Vijay makes an entrance, shocking everybody. He realises that eveybody is corrupt to the core, and the world is full of greedy people who want to take advantage of simple people, he shuns fame and asks Gulabo to join him to lead a new life in some other town. The movie ends with Gulabo accepting Vijay's offer.

The movie describes the troubles faced by artists, be it a poet, a painter, an author a musician, they have to make compromises to lead a normal life. An artist faces a lot of troubles to gain recognition and many talented artists fade away like flowers that just blossom for a few hours and then fade away into ignominy. Sahir Ludhianvi, was the inspiration for Guru Dutt while making Pyaasa, infact Sahir wrote the lyrics for Pyaasa and "Yeh Mehlon, yeh Takhton.., yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya he..." is a timeless classic, which brings out the dilemma of the poet searching for fame and recognition, and his rejection of it, when he finds it. Sahir also published a book titled-"Parchaaiyan," as shown in the movie.

One wonders if the end had not been so quick, what would have been the gems that Dutt saab would have left for us to ponder, wonder and enjoy. As they say he left the world as "pyaasa" and left us thirsting for more. No one can fill the void left by him, Ray was in another world and his movies left an impact far different from Guru Dutt and Ray's work could not be understood by the common man.

Watch Pyaasa, if you have not seen it, you are missing something that cannot be defined in mere words.

My Rating 4.5/5.

Classics Revisited

Gems of Indian Cinema.

Indian cinema, has its share of classics ranging from Ray's Pather Panchali to Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Nizhalkuthu. Starting from today I will be reviewing such movies which may have been failures at the box-office but represent the theme of sensible cinema.

I will start the series with my all time favourite movie-Chemmeen(Prawns). It is based on a novel written by Thakazhi Sivasankaran Pillai. The movie became the first South-Indian movie to win the President's Gold Medal for the best movie of 1965.

Cast-Sathyan, Madhu, Sheela, Kottarakara.
Direction-Ramu Kariat.
Screenplay-S.L. Puram Sadanandam.
Music-Salil Chowdhury.
Editing-Hrishikesh Mukherjee.
Cinematography-Marcus Bartley.

The movie's music was an unprecedented hit, and the song-"Maanasa Maine Varu..," is considered to be the most popular Malayalam movie song of all time. The stunning cinematography captured the various moods of the sea and the triangular love story of Madhu, Sheela and Sathyan.

The story has its roots in a legend that the fishing community believes in, a fisherman's safe return depends on the fidelity of his wife. The story shows how a breach of trust leads to misunderstanding and sorrow. Kottarakara promises to sell his catch of fish to Madhu on credit and Madhu helps him in buying a boat. Kottarakara nets in a big catch of fish, and lured by greed, he ditches his pact with Madhu and sells his catch for ready cash to other traders. Sheela, Kottarakara's daughter falls in love with Madhu, but her father forcibly marries her off to Sathyan a fisherman from another village.

What happens to Madhu and Sheela? Does Sathyan sacrifice his wife for her true love? Is Kottarakara punished for his sins? Watch the movie to get answers for all your questions.

My Rating-4/5.

Mad about dogs

I was born in the year 1982, "Year of the Dog" as per the Chinese Calendar, and I love all animals and am mad about dogs, so when I saw a dvd having seven dog-movies in it, I bought it immediately. The dvd has the following movies-
Lassie.
Snow Dogs.
Twelve dogs of Christmas.
Eight Below.
Agent 11.

I have not seen the remaining two movies, so I do not recollect their names. I loved Snow Dogs, it is a Walt Disney production and has Cuba Gooding Junior in the lead. He is a successful dentist, who gets a letter summoning him to Alaska. He learns he is adopted and the letter concerns the reading of the will of his biological mother.

He inherits a pack of sled-dogs. He finds out that his father is a white sled-racer. The rest of the movie describes how the hero bonds with his Alaskan friends and rescues his father from a terrible storm.

All the movies are worth watching and have no vulgarity, so you can enjoy the movies with your family. Woof Woof!

The Blood Diamond

Movie-The Blood Diamond.
Cast-Leonardo di Caprio, Djimon Honsou, Jeniffer Connelley and others.
Direction and Production-Edward Zwick.
In Africa, each time something of value is discovered, a conflict is bound to follow, be it oil, ivory, gold or diamonds. The day the white man decided to civilize the Dark Continent, the native African began to suffer.
The Blood Diamond is an excellent movie based on the Civil War in the tiny African country of Sierra Leone.

Leonardo di Caprio, is a soldier of fortune who smuggles diamonds for a living. Djimon Honsou, is a fisherman who is separated from his family by the rebels. They force him to work in the mines, while his son is trained to become a child-soldier. In the mines Djimon discovers a rare pink diamond, he tries to hide it when he is caught by Colonel Poison. Simultaneously, the government troops launch an attack on the rebels, and Djimon is captured and imprisoned with the Colonel. Leo who is arrested for smuggling diamonds is also imprisoned in the same cell and he overhears the Colonel accusing Djimon of hiding the diamond.

Leo plans Djimon's release and promises to reunite him with his family if Djimon led him to the diamond. We have a heroine Jeniffer Conelley who is an American journalist looking for a good story. Now the trio hunt for the diamond and search for Djimon's family members.

Does Djimon find his wife and son? Does Leo get the diamond? What happened to the child-soldier? To get answers for this watch the movie.

My Rating-3.5/5.

Pongal Releases a Curtain Raiser

Pongal is considered as the most auspicious time for releasing new movies and this year will see a clash of biggies as almost seven movies are lined up for immediate release and three more films would release in a fortnight. The lineup of the Tamil releases is as follows:
Mani Ratnam's Ash-Abhi starrer-Guru, on Jan 12.(dubbed in Tamil and Telugu).
Aalwar, Pokiri and Paruthiveeran on Jan 14, Sunday.
Thamarabharani releases on Pongal day, Jan 15, Monday.

The other movies which are likely to get released are Lawrence's Muni, Captain Vijaykanth's Sabari, Vijay T. Rajendhar's (Dadi vecha Karadi) Veerasami.

Vishal's Thamarabharani is likely to emerge as the darkhorse winner and will push Vishal into the big league. Pokiri is a remake and it remains to be seen if Prabhudeva can rescue our Ilayadalapathy from his Aathi debacle. Ultimate Star Ajit is on cloud nine after the success of Varalaaru and it is quite likely that Aaazhwar will boost his lucky run at the office. Ameer who gave a critical and commercial hit with Raam, is back with ParuthiVeeran, which will launch Surya's brother Kaarthi in Kollywood.

So lets wait and watch. May the best movie win.

By the way I am going to watch Leo's The Blood Diamond and Mohanlal's Baba Kalyani if it gets released in Chennai this weekend.

Happy Pongal folks.

Vaasthavam

Vaasthavam-Movie review

I saw Padmakumar's Vaasthavam last Friday at Padmam theatre in Chennai. I was pleasantly surprised to see a decent crowd for the matinee show on a working day. The movie is set in the Kerala state Secretariat and shows the dirty politics, corruption and red-tapism that takes place in the corridoors of power in a realistic manner.

Prithviraj plays the role of Balachandra Adigal a Nambboothiri who is the sole breadwinner of his family. Situations force him to marry a woman whom he does not love to create a secure future for his sisters.

Balan reaches Trivandrum, where he stays with Unnithan Jagathy Sreekumar in an excellent role that could fetch him one more award. He is a retired peon who is a living encyclopaedia of Kerala state politics, he initiates Balan into his job as a clerk in the Revenue department.

Balan is attracted to a beautiful divorced woman played by Sindhu Menon they have a relationship using which Balan becomes the secretary of a minister played by Murali. Slowly Balan becomes a powerful playmaker, as he degrades morally. Meanwhile his true love played by Kavya Madhavan is married to an alcoholic policeman who keeps abusing her.

Balan arranges for the policeman to be killed. He is involved in the forceful eviction of tribals for the construction a foreign investment based factory. At a juncture he makes Jagadheesh a replacement for Murali. He distances himself from Sindhu, who decides to teach him a lesson by sleeping with Jagadheesh and then threathening to disclose the news with evidence.

Balan tries to make a compromise by agreeeing to Sindhu's demand of marrying her, but she says she is no longer interested in him and can take all the evidence. Balan realises he is a loser as everyone the woman whom he loved, the woman who seduced him and his wife all desert him.

He visits his mentor Jagathy and says he will reform and become a good civil servant. He leaves in the pouring rain of the night, he is killed by rowdies hired by the foreign company whose project is stalled by Balan's actions.

The moral-"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Two good songs and a tight screenplay, a movie for people who love serious cinema and a nice continuation to "Vargam."

My rating-3.5/5.