Cyrus another Indian Contribution

India has given birth to a new genre of cinema through ‘Being Cyrus’. Astounding and unparallel, the film will hold the audience unaware.
Apparently projecting the life of a Zoroastrian family in snippets, the first half will not score much. Even the initial part of the second half will give enough space to the audience to yawn and stretch, however, if you keep your patience you are sure to expect some shock and that is too all of a sudden. The kind you will really love.
Entering as an apprentice in the nucleus of Sethna family which is run by sculptor Dinshaw (Naseeruddin Shah) and his wife Katy (Dimple Kapadia), Cyrus (Saif Ali Khan), found the relation among the members quite queer. Farokh (Boman Irani), younger brother to Dinshaw and a frustrated specimen who finally got married to Tina (Simone Singh), runs an illegitimate relation with Katy. Katy takes Cyrus into her confidence and tries to ease the existing relationship with Farokh, which adds the twist to the story.
The direction and editing is so fluid that multiple points of time audience will really have to shake them to make them realize that they are not watching a documentary. This leads to a very easy flowing story telling which is a ‘call of time’.
Director Homi Adajania, has put in the best possible research efforts in creating a movie which follows, very closely, the life pattern of a sect. How a person talks, how a person reacts, how a person expresses and interacts are so well integrated in the film that it becomes impossible to understand that we are watching a cinema. On contrary it gives the vibes that we are actually peeping into the Sethna family.
Apart from being labeled as a mystery, which sure it is, ‘Being Cyrus’ can be considered as a narrative of today’s time narrated by a fresh and new story teller.
If stories like these flow in, Indian Cinema will go beyond boundaries of World Cinema. We as audience are looking forward towards that day.

Run For 9 2 11

If you wish to spend an evening with a good feeling then go and watch Taxi Number 9211.
The film is made with a very casual approach and presented the same old theory of good always wins.
Director Milan Luthria seems to be a highly passionate Mumbayia whose story circumvents the thought and feeling of Mumbaite.
Pulling in two diametrically opposite characters, a cab driver Raghav (Nana Patekar) and a businessman Jay (John Abraham), in terms of social status but share the same mindset, the movie is spinned around the search of a will.
Jay, who is running after a will to get back his share of his departed father’s empire, feels that he had been fooled by his father’s friend to whom the entire empire is favored. In the process of getting the will from the vault and reaching at court in tried time, he hires Raghav’s taxi and tempts him to drive fast which leads to an accident. In the accident Jay loses the key to his vault which redirects the search from the key to Raghav. Raghav on the other hand gets pulled by police for breaking traffic rules and desperately tries to find Jay to prove his innocence.
In all this mayhem Jay & Raghav come across certain truths which change their character completely and finally the movie ends with a happy note where Jay gets back his will and Raghav gets back his family which he was about to lose in the pandemonium.
The cinema has its strengths and weaknesses. Among the strengths the first and foremost one would be the choice of Nana as Raghav and John as Jay. They both fit their respective roles.
Scripts come second in the list. Writing hilarious lines is difficult but you will find an easy flow of such lines and the better part is they come one after the other without any break.
Not much to talk about the direction; however screenplay played a major role from the very beginning, right from the point where audience is getting introduced with the main story line.
Though the film missed the pace, it started with, after the interval but again, the slow pace was a kind of a demand as per the ending.
One of the greatest advantages of the film is less number of songs. Thanks to the entire production crew, they kept the number to 2 and created good groovy music to tap with.
It seems that movies like Taxi Number 9211, Bluffmaster are setting a different trend in Mumbai film Industry, which talks more about everyday event and common man rather some fairy tales, kings, queens and all emotions narratives.

A narrative of a ranchland family

This is my first viewing of Lasse Hallström’s. A very casually told story ‘An Unfinished Life’ speaks about fear, belief, apprehensions, relationship and family. Plotted in the ranchland of Wyoming, where two aged males, Einar (Robert Redford) and Mitch (Morgan Freeman) spends their undisturbed days of isolation and inhibitions. They meet some changes when Jean (Jeniffer Lopez), Einar’s daughter-in-law, comes with her daughter Griff (Becca Gardner) to stay. Jean, a widow of Einar’s son and a battered lover to one of her few boy friends, suffers from a guilt, feeling that she is responsible for her husband’s death. The thought is very harshly believed by Einar too, who does not leave any chance to accuse her for same as well. This keeps him away from his grand daughter Griff. In the scantily populated ranchland Einar, Jean and Griff finds only one support, Mitch, who unlike Einar rationally accepted Einar’s son’s death to be an accident.
The story and visual treatment, though not gripping still holds an audience, till the misunderstanding is washed away.
The low budget film is mainly based on its theme and dialogue. The bond among people in a not-so-popular country is very clearly portrayed. The thought of a father who outlived his son and his sustaining relation with the unfinished grave of his son, is quite heart rendering. Similarly is the attachment of Einar and Mitch, who lost his independency to the wounds of a bear attack. Though the usage of a bear as an allegory to Mitch’s fear is bit far fetched still it is a good feel for one who can decipher it.
Undoubtedly, the powerful cast contributed their best. As a debutant, Becca Gardner’s acting as an unaccepted granddaughter who gradually reaps her grandpa’s love and cares for her, is surely mentionable.
Loosely directed and edited ‘An Unfinished Life’ is not a call for all movie goers. Only if you have a real taste and deep feeling for drama, do not miss the screening.

Lost and found at Park Avenue

Hats off to Aparna Sen for offering us ‘15 Park Avenue’. Scripted and directed by her the film is starred by Konkona Sen Sharma, Rahul Bose, Shabana Azmi, Waheeda Rehman, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Kanwaljeet Singh and others. In a sentence the theme webs around the past and present of a schizophrenic, who is in search of an address as suggested by the title.
Mithi (Konkona Sen Sharma) – the schizophrenic- stays with her sister Anjali – a professor - (Shabana Azmi) and her mother (Waheeda Rehman). In the venture of pursuing a career as a journalist and under constant pressure of her betrothed Joydeep (Rahul Bose), she becomes the victim of politicians at Bihar-Bengal border during election coverage. A brutal mass rape at the site aggravates her schizophrenic symptoms and severs her from Joydeep, who fails to keep up to the promise of settling with Mithi and flies to America and marries Lakshmi (Shefali Chaya). The relationship with Joydeep remained so deeply arrested in Mithi’s mind that she even fails to recognize the repented Joydeep in person who accidentally met her during a holiday.
The film portrays the stand of each of every person in such an associative manner that as an audience one would feel as a part of the story. The pain of Mithi, the obsession of Anjali’s caress, the helplessness of mother, the repentance of Joydeep all prove the finest craftsmanship of story telling which is so very natural in Sen.
As a director, this is not Aparna’s first film. Though I haven’t seen much of hers but whatever of Sen’s I’ve seen, it can be said, that 15 Park Avenue echoes her filming competency.
The best part of the film, as felt by me, is the portrayal of a schizophrenic’s world. Dealing with something like psychological disorder is in it self a serious issue. And to offer it in the most lucid way possible makes it more difficult. The way Sen educated the intricacies of the disorder, that it reminded Ray’s mastery of dealing with complicated subject.
Though stringed as one piece, still the presences of individual turbulence are strongly felt through out the film. Anjali’s sacrifice of forming a family of her own with her colleague, or the anxiety of the mother, or even the internal family trauma of Joydeep and Lakshmi once she realized that Joy is meeting his past flame again. All strengthened the core matter – Mithi’s search of her own world staying completely oblivious of her surrounding but not forgetting to mark her presence. The misfit between world of schizophrenia and the world of clinically normal is very boldly felt in the film.
The twist in the tale lies at the conclusion. Very much typical Sen, the last scene helped graduating the film from a regular story to a fairy tale. Once realized what happened in the last sequence, any story teller will agree that a better and positive ending would not have been possible. Finally, finding what was searched and disappearing from the world of clinically fit can only be related to the finding of self actualization.
Though filmed in Kolkata, yet the search of an American address in the city is a nicely set analogy of the search, we are searching every day, every moment.