An afternoon at the movies: thoughts on Vathikuchi and Paradesi

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2013, A. R. Murugadoss, Adharvaa Murali, Bala, Dileepan, P. Kinslin, Paradesi, Tamil, Vathikuchi

Vathikuchi (unsubtitled)

Vathikuchi is written and directed by debutant P. Kinslin, produced by A. R. Murugadoss, and features the acting debut of Murugadoss’s brother Dileepan. Dileepan plays Sakthi, who lives on the outskirts of Chennai with his parents and sister, and works as an autorickshaw driver. The structure of the film is relatively sophisticated, with a present-day storyline involving Sakthi’s crush on his neighbour Leena, played by Anjali, and numerous flashbacks showing how he unknowingly made enemies of three different people. First, he is robbed by some thugs outside an ATM, but later beats them and their leader up and gets his money back. As a result the leader (played by Sampath Raj) loses respect and ends up destitute. Next, he foils an assassination attempt against a man and his family, making an enemy of the gangster who ordered the assassination (played by Jayaprakash) (this storyline was hard to grasp without subtitles). Finally, a neighbour of Sakthi’s (played by Jagan) has a plan to extort money from a wealthy man – maybe by kidnapping his son? However, the wealthy man helps Sakthi when he is involved in a traffic accident, and as a result of Sakthi’s presence in the wealthy man’s life the extortion plan fails. At the end of the film these three enemies come together to give Sakthi basically the worst 48 hours ever. The final flashback shows us how Sakthi managed to overcome his enemies and is, I think, delightfully cheeky.

“Trickster” Ram strikes again ~ Kandireega

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2011, Hansika, Kandireega, Ram, Sonu Sood

I’m quite a fan of the Telugu actor Ram. The thing that sets him apart among the pantheon of Telugu actors is that he tends to play “trickster” characters – guys that can fight, but are more likely to try and resolve a situation with an elaborate plan first. I believe this trend of Ram’s started with the extremely charming Ready (seriously, don’t waste your time with the vulgar-seeming Hindi remake, but definitely check out the Telugu original) and it has continued with his four subsequent films. The latest of these is Kandireega, in which the plot twists unfold like a set of nesting dolls opening, so that by the time you get down to the last one you almost can’t remember what you started from.

Rachcha: it’s all about the songs!

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2012, rachcha, Ram Charan Teja, Tamannaah

I don’t have much to say about Sampath Nandi’s Rachcha, except I’m starting to worry that Ram Charan Teja will never again match his portrayal of Harsha/Kala Bhairava in Magadheera (I’m starting to think that portrayal was caused by magic, and that magic’s name is S. S. Rajamouli). Ram Charan is spectacular in Rachcha‘s songs, but outside of those, when he is actually required to act (or what passes for acting among Telugu film heroes, which might more precisely be called performing) I just think he has no charisma.

Adventures in Unsubtitled Movies ~ Julayi

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2012, Allu Arjun, Ileana, Julayi, Sonu Sood, Trivikram Srinivas, unsubtitled

As far as I can tell, the plot of Allu Arjun’s new movie Julayi is as follows. Allu Arjun plays Ravi, a regular middle-class guy who is hanging out with friends at a pub when the pub is raided by police based on an anonymous tip. However, because has exceptional observation and deduction skills (dare I say, Sherlock Holmes-esque?) he realizes the raid is just a distraction called in by the people who gave him a lift to the pub, and who are in fact bank robbers. Sonu Sood (one of the only men in the world who looks good in skinny jeans) plays Bittu, the leader of the bank robbing gang, and the kind of badass who goes to rob a bank wearing an elegant pair of driving moccasins. Ravi, working with the police, ends up killing Bittu’s brother, and capturing Bittu himself, while the stolen money seems to go up in smoke. The rest of the movie concerns Bittu’s attempts to get revenge on Ravi while at the same time trying to get out of the country, while Ravi and the police try to protect the former’s loved ones and to prevent Bittu from escaping the country. A romantic subplot is provided by Ileana, playing Madhu, who coincidentally works at a travel agency managed by one of Bittu’s associates.

Elegant Pairings: when James Ivory met Wes Anderson and Satyajit Ray

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1964, 1965, 1970, 2007, Bombay Talkie, Charulata, James Ivory, Satyajit Ray, Shakespeare Wallah, The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson

This summer, the TIFF Cinematheque has mounted a retrospective of films directed by James Ivory (of the legendary Merchant Ivory Productions), appropriately called James Ivory: Elegant Pairings. The retrospective has been co-curated by Ivory himself, with each of his films paired with another that “inspired it, complements it or casts it in a new light.” Of the eight films being presented, two are set in India – Bombay Talkie (1970) which was paired with Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (2007), and Shakespeare Wallah (1965) which was paired with Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (1964).

Shanghai: where’s the outrage?

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1969, 2012, Abhay Deol, Costa Gavras, Dibakar Banerjee, Emraan Hashmi, Kalki Koechlin, Shanghai, Z

My experience watching Shanghai (Dibakar Banerjee’s latest film, starring Emraan Hashmi, Abhay Deol, and Kalki Koechlin) on Sunday afternoon was a good example of the danger of going to see a movie without your expectations firmly in check. Since it released Friday I had been seeing a lot of praise for it on Twitter. I also made the mistake of re-watching, the day before, Costa Gavras’s 1969 movie Z based on the same novel by Vassilis Vassilikos that inspired Shanghai. It’s a very powerful film and as good as Shanghai is, it just couldn’t stand up to the comparison.

The disclaimer at the beginning of Z, which reads: “Any similarity to real events, to persons dead or living is not coincidental. It is INTENTIONAL”

[Note: this post contains spoilers for Shanghai and Z, strong language, and bullet points]

Rowdy Rathore: in defense of South Indian-style masala movies

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2006, 2011, 2012, Akshay Kumar, Anushka Shetty, Karthi, Ravi Teja, Rowdy Rathore, Siruthai, Sonakshi Sinha, Tamannaah, Vikramarkudu

I was disheartened, but not surprised, to see so many discount Akshay Kumar’s latest movie Rowdy Rathore because it is a remake of a South Indian masala film. As excited as I am by the new wave of more realistic, ‘Hindie’ cinema now coming out of India, let’s not forget that many of us who are into Bollywood were first attracted to it due to its entertainment value – the genre-busting storylines, the colourful songs, the ridiculous action sequences. In fact, due to the fact that Bollywood seems to be producing less and less true masala films these days, I know of many fans who have turned to South Indian movies as a source of entertainment instead, myself included.

Super Sperm: Vicky Donor & Starbuck

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2011, 2012, Canadian, Hindi, Starbuck, Vicky Donor

It seems that 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the sleeper hit. The year isn’t even half over and we have already seen three modest films outperform expectations at the box office, first with Paan Singh Tomar, then Kahaani (although Vidya Balan’s success with The Dirty Picture makes qualifying this as a true sleeper debatable) and now Vicky Donor, a romantic comedy about a young man who earns his living as a sperm donor for the fertility specialist Dr Chaddha, which was made for five crore rupees and has grossed about seven times as much. Personally, I paid almost no attention to the promos of this film prior to its release. Positive word-of-mouth led me to check out the trailer, which left me underwhelmed, and frankly more than a little skeptical that a Hindi film could handle the topic of sperm donation without descending into vulgarity. More positive word-of-mouth following the film’s release piqued my curiosity so when Dolce and Namak suggested going to see it, I was happy to comply. Sadly, my skepticism did not prove to be entirely unfounded.

Despite the Gods: Jennifer Lynch’s “clusterf**k”

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2012, Despite the Gods, Documentary, Hisss, Jennifer Lynch, Mallika Sherawat

Despite the Gods is filmmaker Penny Vozniak’s documentary about writer-director Jennifer Lynch’s eight-month experience filming a movie in India. The movie in question ended up being Hisss starring Mallika Sherawat, which I haven’t seen, but you can read Filmigirl’s generous review of it here. Despite the Gods had its world premiere last night at the HotDocs film festival in Toronto, with Penny Vozniak, Jennifer Lynch and Jennifer’s daughter Syd in attendance. I’m not sure how much appeal it would hold for a general audience, but I think people who are either interested in the process of filmmaking, in Bollywood, or in India generally, would enjoy the documentary. For someone like me, who likes all three, the film was very entertaining indeed.

Agent Vinod: the rant of a disappointed espionage fan

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2012, Agent Vinod, Hindi, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan

Before it released this past Friday, Agent Vinod – the latest vanity project from Saif Ali Khan’s Illuminati Films – had been in production so long it had earned the nickname “Aging Vinod.” The long production time suggested that the final product could be one of two things: a great movie carefully and thoughtfully put together, or a disjointed mess. I’d been looking forward to the film, because the espionage genre is one of my favourites – I can’t resist its combination of stylishness and intrigue – and it’s a genre that is sadly lacking in Indian films. Unfortunately, I found Agent Vinod to be closer to the ‘disjointed mess’ end of the spectrum – a classic case of style over substance.