Totally Filmi

love consists in this

Love consists in this, that two solititudes protect and touch and greet each other.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

 

We are approaching the end of Deol Dhamaka, and if I've gone a little silent here on the blog, it's because I've spent the last week trying to figure out how a film that contains what is probably one of my favorite scenes of all time can also be a film that makes me so profoundly sad that I almost cannot bear to watch it again.

Let me start with what makes my heart go ping.  Gadar:  Ek Prem Katha (dir. Anil Sharma, 2001), is, on one level, the love story of Tara Singh and Sakina, he Sikh, she Muslim.  Their initial meeting is told in flashback, after Tara rescues Sakina on a railway platform after she has become separated from her family during an attack on Muslims trying to flee to Pakistan at the time of Partition.  What Sakina does not know is that Tara Singh is in love with her, as, of course, he never told her at the time they first met, and they obviously have not seen each other since she left the school he used to deliver goods to.

Tara arranges to take Sakina to Lahore where she can find an uncle; as she prepares for the journey, she stumbles across Tara's journal, with an entry about how he loves her marked with a dried flower, one she gave him at their final meeting at the school, and which he has pressed between the pages.

She is suprised, and profoundly touched by this (and oh, what a wonderful performance by Amisha Patel, I am so glad that I discovered how good she could be in Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., and how lovely she is in this film), and when Tara Singh needs his turban tied so they can get on the road to Lahore:

 

 

Sakina offers to tie it for him:

 

 

 

 

And next, as I said, likely my favorite scene in all of cinema.  The two gradually gather up the ends of the turban cloth, and come closer and closer, gazing into each others eyes until they awkwardly meet in the middle:

 

 

 

 

 

As she ties Tara's turban, Sakina talks to him, asking him why he's never been married, presumably trying to draw him out on what she already knows.  He tells her what sounds like the usual story he has handy for anyone who wonders, that he's a truck driver, he's often away from home, his wife would have to be alone and do all the work, yadda yadda.  But remember that dialogue, because in a lovely bit of continuity, Sakina will use it just a little bit later in the film, on the route to Lahore.

Finally, she's done, and Tara goes to look at it in the mirror:

 

 

 

At this point, I was practically screaming at the screen, "Oh, he's going to take it off and tell her it's too wonderful to wear, oh he is!"  And of course, he does:

 

 

 

Ping.

Of course, now I have to reconcile this, this fact that Gadar:  Ek Prem Katha contains one of the most beautiful love stories ever, with the fact that it is, frankly, extremely jingoistic and expresses a kind of nationalism that finds its expression in belittling the "other", in creating Pakistani/Muslim characters that are so caricatural and so one-dimensional that it makes me want to weep.

The thing is:  the more reading I do about this film -- about how popular it was, about how it was a product of a particular time in Indian history (it was created and released in an atmosphere in the late 1990s/early 2000s which saw an increasingly strained and hostile relationship between India and Pakistan, strain between the Hindu and Muslim communities within India, and an increase in Indian Patriotism, as Bhaskar Sarkar points out in the book Mourning the Nation:  Indian Cinema in the Wake of Partition), about how it reflected a certain way that Indian history had been written (Gyanendra Pandey has written about views of Partition as a kind of "mistake", with Indians as the victims of actions and decisions for which "others" were responsible) -- the more I read, the more I feel I need to read, and the more I feel I need to think about this film.

Gadar:  Ek Prem Katha is not an "avoid yaar" film, no matter how unpalatable the views it expresses seem at times, at least to me.  And, in fact, it contains what may be amongst my favorite performances ever by both Sunny Deol and Amisha Patel (at least, in the first half of the film).  But it is a difficult film, it is a challenging film, and it is a film that deserves to be examined in the light of events surrounding its creation and release, in the re-examination of how Partition is treated by historians, by writers, by filmmakers. 

I've decided that I don't want to rush what I've been working on -- that I'd rather take my time and read through the little stack of things I've already accumulated, to search out more -- to learn more, before I deal with the film here on the blog.  It's a film that troubles me greatly, but it's a film that moves me greatly, too, and I think I really want to explore that in more depth than I can by just trying to throw a post together in a week.

 

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

Deol Dhamaka: the Shutterbug

 
“I have always loved photography. Even though I have not been trained professionally, I have nurtured it as a hobby for many years. The good thing is that I get to travel to beautiful places while I am shooting, so I get a chance to capture a lot of interesting shots. I enjoy it.”

Sunny Deol,  as quoted in the Deccan Chronicle.

There have been a number of lovely photos along with the occasional tidbit coming out about the film Sunny Deol is working on right now, director Chandra Prakash Dwrivedi's Mohalla Assi (release date August 2011 ::squee::), in which Sunny will play a Sanskrit teacher and pundit.

Probably the loveliest to come out so far have been this set making the rounds, of Sunny, in costume, on the sets of the film, camera in hand:

 
 

 

Of course, I had two questions about this.  First:  what kind of camera is he using?

 

To get the answer to that, I asked one of my favorite shutterbugs, John Meadows (creator of a rather lovely photoblog called My Third Eye), who, when I sent him to look at the photos, responded:

 

(John corrected himself in the tweet right after this, because of course, he meant "between an M6 and an M9")

 

(Aside:  I'm not a photographer, but as a knitter, I've been seriously covetting these very expensive pieces of equipment lately, which I'm guessing is the knitting equivalent of coveting a Leica Rangefinder, so at this moment, I totally understand John's tweet.  Totally.)

(And yes, those are FORTY DOLLARS each.  And yes, they are absolutely worth it.  I've done a test drive with one of the circulars.  TOTALLY WORTH IT.  Plus?  You can order a "stiletto tip".  Oh, yes, serious coveting going on around here....)

Oh, yes, the second question:  are we ever going to see some of Sunny's photos?  Wouldn't it be lovely to see a "Sunny Film Shoot Photoblog" somewhere?  Or, the occasional photo sent in a tweet, like Boman Irani used to do?  Or like Anupam Kher does (though, admittedly, I think Anupam Kher mostly sends iPhone pics from the sets, but still)?

Does anyone besides me think that this would be a delightful and interesting way to do a little promotion for a film, you know, now that Sunny has discovered that a little promotion can work wonders?

 

 

 

Right Yaaa Wrong (dir. Neeraj Pathak, 2010)

I've been mulling for days over what to write about Right Yaaa Wrong, and I think finally, I can sum it up like this:

 

Above Suspicion has been described as a well-written, engaging, surprising, suspenseful film, a "well-made TV thriller" according to IMDb, with fine performances from Christopher Reeves, Kim Cattrall and Joe Mantegna. 

But -- I had NO CLUE while I was watching Right Yaaa Wrong and making notes and trying to wrap my head around dealing with spoilers and figuring out what I liked about the film and what I didn't -- I had NO CLUE that it was, in fact merely a remake of this 1995 HBO telefilm.  (For those intrigued by the small details of things, William H. Macy was one of the film's writers, and has a small role in it.  I quite like William H. Macy, but that's neither here nor there.)  And from what I've read in the IMDb forums, rather a faithful remake -- though I'm betting that what I actually find confusing, the bits I actually don't care for in Right Yaaa Wrong, the bits that are messy and short on coherence, and trying on the viewer's patience, are small departures from the original (though I can only guess, having not seen Above Suspicion myself.  And that doesn't absolve Right Yaaa Wrong, but it makes me intensely curious to see the original.).  In fact, I think they changed the ending of the film from the original, slightly, and it's the ending I find most troubling of all.

Okay -- let me tell you what I love about Right Yaaa Wrong.   Pretty much, I adore the first twenty minutes.  Those first twenty minutes introduce us to Ajay Shridhar (Sunny Deol), a cop with just a side of action hero to his character.  Ajay is tough, he's determined, he's funny, he's tender, and he sees the world in shades, and not just in black and white.  This stands in contrast to his partner Vinay Patnaik (Irrfan Khan).  For Vinay, there is right, there is wrong, and there is a line between them.  Vinay is the polar opposite of Ajay.  Where Ajay is warm and easy-going, the heart and soul of their team, a devoted father and husband, Vinay is cool, introverted, prickly, unwilling to commit to a relationship.

And yet - the two of them complement each other.  They are, despite the odds, the firmest of friends, there for each other through it all.  And the "all" includes the fateful day when a bust goes wrong, and Ajay is shot, and ends up in a wheelchair. 

 
(This is one of my fave recent buddy moments on film, and I really wish someone would put Irrfan and Sunny in another film together, another cop buddy film, cos I think it would be worth it.)

And that's pretty much, I think, when the film starts to go all pear-shaped for me.  So, here's my advice:  if you're not a Sunny fan, watch the first twenty minutes and fall in love with Ajay Shridhar.  And then?  TURN OFF THE FILM.  If you're an adoring Sunny fan?  Watch the first twenty minutes.  And then?  TURN OFF THE FILM.

Okay, if you're like me, though, you'll actually watch the film through, and that more than once.  And I seriously think people should watch films and form their own opinions of them.  But, and also seriously --  I will now tell you everything you need to know about the film, and then you can TURN IT OFF twenty minutes in.***

I should probably issue a kind of SPOILER alert at this point.  I've mulled over all week where the lines are drawn here, and I think I've pretty much decided that the thriller part of the film stems not from the planning of the perfect murder -- we know what happens pretty early in the film -- the thriller part is not finding out who the murderer is, but whether or not he will actually be caught out.

On some level, Right Yaaa Wrong explores a moral ground similar to that of A Wednesday -- when good people do the wrong things for very compelling reasons, then what should our reaction be? I'm not sure I had all the answers at the end of A Wednesday, and I'm not sure I have them at the end of Right Yaaa Wrong, either.

That said -- at the end of A Wednesday I was left feeling immense sympathy for Naseeruddin Shah's "common man", even if I didn't agree with his actions.  At the end of Right Yaaa Wrong -- well, I felt incredible sympathy too, but for Vinay, who, it seems to me, was used and manipulated by someone who was supposed to be his closest friend.  And I'm left feeling incredibly sad that my faith in Ajay -- my total, utter belief in him as a very good soul -- was shattered.

 
(Yes, I suppose that I was warned.  But.  Still.) 

You could probably argue that this manipulation was part of the film's drama, that it produced the tension that keeps us hooked right through the film, and  I won't disagree.  There is a point where I sympathise so totally with Ajay that I almost want him to get away with what he's done. But as Vinay peels back the layers of the crime through his investigation of it -- there's his duty to the lines of right and wrong again, he is so compelled by his belief in doing the right thing that he's willing to set his friendship on the line to do what is so patently and compellingly right -- and Ajay's cold-hearted side is revealed, well.

(Okay, I'm going to throw up another SPOILER ALERT here.  I hate writing up films with spoilers, but there's no other way for me to get the film out of my system unless I do this.)

I think I finally decided where the lines of right and wrong were.  After he's acquitted, Ajay writes a confession which he hand delivers to Vinay.  I suspect this is the biggest departure from Above Suspicion (I also suspect the sloppy attempt to introduce a love-interest, played by Konkona Sen Sharma in a role that feels like a bit of a mis-casting, is another one), and for me, as a viewer, it's a huge mis-step. 

Ajay claims he would have pleaded guilty, he would have taken responsibility for his actions if it weren't for his son, if he hadn't had his son to look after.  It's a last minute plea on the part of the film to make me believe that Ajay really is that man from the first twenty minutes of the film that I fell in love with, a man who maybe deserves to get away with what is, essentially, the cold-blooded, planned and calculated murder of his beloved wife and his brother when he discovers they've been having an affair behind his back, and then trying to pass it off as "self-defense", because really, they wanted him out of the way first.

And it just made me feel as if I'd been punched by one of Sunny's dhaai kilo ka haath.

 

 
 (Oh, don't give me that look.  I'm on to you.)
 

 

***Also?  After re-watching?  I have to say, one of the things I find interesting about the film is that it turns the two characters on their heads.  Sunny's character -- action-oriented, impulsive -- ends up in that wheelchair, and he becomes very intense, very inward-looking, holding everything in, staying completely in control.  And Irrfan's character -- introverted, controlled -- becomes emotional and impulsive.  So forget what I said, don't turn the film off.