REVIEW 783: BULBBUL

Release date:	June 24, 2020
Director:	Anvita Dutt
Cast:	Tripti Dimri, Avinash Tiwary, Paoli Dam, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Rahul Bose, Ruchi Mahajan, Varun Paras Buddhadev, Vishwanath Chatterjee
Language:	Hindi

I really enjoy the way Anushka Sharma’s mind works. 

I am not referring to this film alone for which of course writer-director Anvita Dutt must first be cited. The mention of Sharma right at the start of this review comes because of a pattern emerging from the choices this talented actor has made in her avatar as a producer in the past half decade. Her debut production, NH10 in 2015, was a feminist crime thriller. Then followed two supernatural flicks, one a romance (Phillauri, 2017), the other a horror movie (Pari, 2018). Just as she is reaping accolades and fending off outraged conservatives for her socio-political crime series Paatal Lok on Amazon Prime, here comes her first feature film to be released directly on a streaming platform. 

Bulbbul combines what appear to be Sharma’s two primary interests – feminism and the paranormal – that earlier came together in the terrifying Pari. Her courageous, non-conformist filmography as a producer is at odds with her off-screen image in recent years of being a supporter of the current right-wing regime.

In Bulbbul, the viewer is transported to the Bengal Presidency in 1881, where child marriages were a norm, and women born or married into aristocratic families were expected – no differently from today – to stay silent about the injustices meted out to them by patriarchy, their caste privilege notwithstanding. 

A sense of foreboding descends on the screen from the very first frame on the wedding day of a little girl (Ruchi Mahajan), and in the palanquin on the way to her marital home, as a kind older boy tells her the story of a murderous, bloodthirsty chudail (female demon). 

Twenty years later, the girl is now a gorgeous but oddly detached young woman (Tripti Dimri) presiding over her mansion while her husband (Rahul Bose) and his twin brother are nowhere to be seen, her elder sister-in-law (Paoli Dam) has been relegated to insignificance and her attractive brother-in-law (Avinash Tiwary) returns after a long absence. 

Director Amar Kaushik had blended humour and the other-world in his Stree in 2018 to turn the tables on men who suppress women in the guise of concern. In a completely different genre, in Bulbbul the conceptualisation of the spirit cocks a snook at anti-feminist propaganda and stereotypes of the man-hating woman. At a very basic level, to me Bulbbul is what Devdas might have been if in a paranormal revisitation of that classic, Paro had turned round and landed a tight slap on the eponymous loser hero’s face.

Dutt is an accomplished lyricist, screenplay and dialogue writer for Hindi films. With Bulbbul she makes her debut as a director. Her writing for this film combines superstition, mythology and history, fantasy, folktale, feminism and fable, to deliver a story drenched in a deep sadness and the blood of women across centuries who have suffered and fought battles so that some of us may today enjoy freedoms that they could not, giving us the strength to fight newer battles against the cruelty that still survives.

The fabulous atmospherics in Bulbbul are a product of Amit Trivedi’s music in collaboration with DoP Siddharth Diwan’s low-lit colour-saturated frames and the production design by Meenal Agarwal in the leading lady’s resplendent house and neighbouring areas. 

Bulbbul does not often venture into bright daylight. Using a palette reminiscent of the lovely Tumbbad (2018), it bathes the screen in shades of red with flashes of gold – the red of the Hindu bride’s clothing and sindoor symbolising the red of a virgin’s blood flowing on her wedding night and onward into a river of silent suffering or rebellion or both. 

The chudail in Bulbbul fits the physical description of the furious female spook of Indian folklore – beautiful, with long hair and feet twisted backwards. Dutt however gives even that convention a neat – and heartbreaking – twist. This mystery woman is not summoned up here to startle the audience in the way traditional horror films do, but instead to set us thinking. (Note: please read this paragraph after watching the film) She is a personification of the rage of the marginalised, and a stark portrait of what the world might be if the oppressed – in this case, women – were to unleash their rage on the oppressor. She reminded me of a conversation I had aeons back with a senior friend who said she hoped I would not become one of “those angry feminists”, to which I remember replying, “But considering all that we are subjected to, should you not be asking why we women are so calm, and why we are not angrier?” (Cautionary note ends) 

For a film that is so thoughtful in its take on gender politics, it is surprising that  Bulbbul  uses a mentally challenged character as one of its metaphors for patriarchy in an India that remains largely ignorant about disabilities of the mind. I also wish the woman-as-goddess trope had not been thrown into the mix, especially since it is articulated by a man in the film. After all, pedestalisation has long been used by patriarchy to deceive women into thinking they are valued, when in fact they are being set up to be pulled down when the system pleases. The film might also have been better served if the character of Bulbbul’s brother-in-law Satya had more detail. 

Of the men in the storyline, the one given most heft by the writing is the doctor (Parambrata Chattopadhyay) who becomes the heroine’s friend. And of her many relationships, the one I found most complex was with her sister-in-law, Binodini – two women united in mutual despair yet playing games with each other for survival. 

Dutt has assembled a solid cast for Bulbbul. Tripti Dimri as the title character lives up to the promise she showed in Laila-Majnu. Her Bulbbul is in a state of constant internal turmoil camouflaged by an enigmatic demeanour, which the young actor conveys almost imperceptibly with the lightest of touches.   

Dimri’s co-star from Laila-Majnu, Avinash Tiwary gets a role here that is not flashy like the one he had in that film or the delightful but underrated Tu Hai Mera Sunday. He too is a picture of understatement. Ruchi Mahajan who plays the child Bulbbul is a dear. My pick of the supporting cast though is the unfailingly good Chattopadhyay. 

Since the film is set in Bengal, it requires a suspension of disbelief to accept characters who are all speaking Hindi. Dutt wisely does not ask her non-Bengali actors to do exaggerated Bengali accents to convince us of their characters’ ethnicity – the milieu is right, the look and styling are on point, thus making it possible for the viewer’s imagination to do the rest of the work. 

Among other joys that it offers then is the fact that Bulbbul is one of those rare contemporary Hindi films to travel beyond the Hindi belt and Punjab to a culture and place that Bollywood does not often visit these days. With its eerie air and mythical, mystical tone, Dutt’s film brings alive a spectre that is not scary in the way the average Hindi film bhoot or daayin is – what is scary are the circumstances that brought this creature to such a pass. 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 3

Gulabo Sitabo is streaming on Netflix.

Running time:

94 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bulbbul-movie-review-anushka-sharmas-continuing-interest-in-the-paranormal-yields-compelling-results-8519781.html

Poster courtesy: IMDB

REVIEW 198: ANKUR ARORA MURDER CASE

Release date:	June 14, 2013
Director:	Suhail Tatari
Cast: Language:	Arjun Mathur, Kay Kay Menon, Vishakha Singh, Tisca Chopra, Sachin Khurana, Paoli Dam, Manish Chaudhari, Harsh Chhaya, Vishesh Tiwari Hindi

Arjun Mathur plays a medical intern in Ankur Arora Murder Case

Ankur Arora Murder Case is such an opportunity lost! Director Suhail Tatari’s take on a medical negligence case in an Indian hospital – produced and written by Vikram Bhatt – sets itself up well in the first half with a straightforward, brisk storytelling style. I admit it requires a suspension of disbelief to accept that a hospital’s seniormost doctor would be the one conducting a simple appendectomy with no foreseeable complications, but let’s grant the team this much as cinematic licence. Brevity is the hallmark of the film until that appendicitis patient Ankur Arora goes under Dr Asthana’s knife. Unlike most Hindi film doctors, these medicos actually look convincing on the job, handling instruments and rattling off medical jargon with a comfort level that’s obviously come to them from the workshops they reportedly attended in preparation for the film. In fact, I can pinpoint the precise moment when the film begins to fall apart: it’s that moment when Ankur is lying in a coma and a looooong song suddenly bursts out in the background while the camera languorously strolls through the hospital, around the little boy’s room where his unhappy mother sits by his bedside, into the homes of the two medical interns involved in the case, showing us close-ups of their faces, long shots of them standing or sitting around… in short, wasting time, slowing down the narrative and giving us a sign of things to come in the rest of the film.

It’s downhill from then on. What follows is contrived melodrama which was completely unnecessary since there is so much tension and emotion intrinsic to the story of a young medical intern taking on an arrogant, ruthless, influential doctor whose carelessness kills the only child of a single mother. This could and should have been that rare, efficient medical thriller that Bollywood does not make. Could have been but is not because Tatari and Bhatt keep most of their characters one-dimensional while throwing into the blend songs, needless plot twists and unnecessary asides (like that affair between the film’s two lawyers). By the time the climax comes around, boredom has set in, thus dampening the surprise it throws up. Besides, in contrast with the authenticity of the hospital proceedings, the film’s courtroom scenes look plastic and defy law & logic.

Maybe I’m spoilt because right now I’m simultaneously watching re-runs of that beautiful American legal drama The Practice on TV along with the hospital-based series Grey’s Anatomy which may occasionally overdose us with romance and sex among its doctors but has not once so far – I repeat, not once – faltered in the coverage of the medical cases it brings us. Maybe I’m spoilt because just recently the Arshad Warsi-starrer Jolly LLB showed us that Bollywood is capable of portraying real courtrooms with real characters that could actually exist off screen. Actually, you know what, it’s none of the above… The truth is that I’m angry and disappointed because Suhail Tatari made his directorial debut with a lovely (though poorly publicised) film called Summer 2007 starring Sikander Kher, Gul Panag, Yuvika Chaudhary and Arjan Bajwa. AAMC marks many qualitative steps down from that film which was about a group of carefree, city-bred medical interns getting unwittingly involved in a series of farmers’ suicides while on a rural posting. Summer 2007 spoke in a consistent voice from start to finish. AAMC, on the other hand, seems to have compromised on a potentially hard-hitting story in the interests of what old-fashioned film folk describe as “commercial” demands.

Sad, because the film’s young leads Arjun Mathur and Vishakha Singh deserve so much better than this. Mathur and Singh play lovers Romesh and Riya, medical interns on opposing sides in Ankur Arora’s case. The writing of Riya’s character is definitely more nuanced than Romesh’s – she struggles with her conscience, he seems to face no internal battles whatsoever when he decides to risk his career to fight Dr Asthana – but with all the limitations imposed on them, they actually manage to appear credible right till the end. So does Tisca Chopra as Ankur’s grieving mother. Vishesh Tiwari – who we’ve earlier seen in Chillar Party and Ek Thi Daayan – is convincing in a brief appearance as Ankur. The role of Mrs Arora’s lawyer though required a better actress than Paoli Dam (the Bengali actress who made her Bollywood debut with Hate Story in 2012).

For proof that even the best actors are limited by the material at hand though, you need to watch the usually wonderful Kay Kay Menon as Dr Asthana. He’s fine through most of the film but his “Yes I am god” bhaashan towards the end is an embarrassing piece of writing and direction that good acting fails to save. Menon will no doubt get many chances to redeem himself. This industry that is tough on actors is far tougher on directors. For the sake of good cinema one can only hope that Suhail Tatari gets back on his feet, brushes himself off and finds a great script in which he invests sincerity and conviction, to make a film that’s worthy of his talent. Ankur Arora Murder Case is not that film.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	129 minutes (as per pvrcinemas.com)

Photograph courtesy: Raindrop Media 

REVIEW 131: HATE STORY

Release date:	April 20, 2012
Director:	Vivek Agnihotri
Cast:	Paoli Dam, Gulshan Devaiah, Nikhil Dwivedi, Bhairavi Goswami

If you plan to be a prostitute, know this: that to be the best r***i ever, you must learn to “shake it, take it, fake it”. This gyaan is offered to prostitutional aspirant Kavya Krishna (Paoli Dam) in Hate Story by a top-notch r***i (the Hindi word that rhymes with undie) as she brushes her fulsome breasts against Kavya’s bulky bosom of which we see a lot in this film.

Since so much trouble has been taken to shoot those Dam breasts from all imaginable angles that would pass muster with the stiff-necked Indian Censors, and since far less effort seems to have been invested in this shallow script, I can only guess that the former are meant to be Hate Story’s USP! So here are my takeaways from this unintentionally funny film:

1.     Paoli Dam – Bollywood debutant but a known name in West Bengal – is beautiful.

2.     Paoli Dam is sexy. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions, boys, but I suspect you will agree that those killer curves are (as my teenaged friends would put it) hawt!

3.     Paoli Dam needs a better gym. Sorry girl, I’d usually consider such remarks personal, but a decently articulated assessment of your body is fair game when you position yourself as a sex bomb and drop your clothes at the drop of a hat. FYI if that’s the niche you are eyeing, a generous bosom and slim waist are not enough – you need a perfectly toned back too! And since this film has chosen to lure audiences into theatres with a photo-shopped, flawless rear view of you in the posters, the real thing on celluloid ought to match up!

4.     Paoli Dam and director Vivek Agnihotri have the courage not to camouflage her complexion. She is dark skinned and not pretending to be otherwise. This is such a pleasant change from most Bollywood films that use pancake, lighting and camera trickery to alter the skin colour of their dusky leading ladies. In that respect, Paoli harks back to the early days of Kajol, long before Ms Devgn nee Mukherjee became the whitened-up creature of the current cosmetic company ads that she now appears in!

5.     Paoli Dam needs to improve her acting.

Now that you’ve absorbed all that, here’s a sliver of the story: Kavya is a Delhi journalist whose sting operation exposes a cement company. This brings her in conflict with industrialist Siddharth Dhanrajgir who unleashes his life’s motto on her: “I f*** the people who f*** with me.” But Sid is doomed when Kavya dedicates her own life to vengeance against him because, as she explains, when a woman decides to sell her izzat instead of trying to protect it, no man stands a chance, least of all you, Siddharth Dhanrajgiiiiiiiiiiir!!! Drum rolls please!

No doubt there was potential in Hate Story’s story brief. After all, the all-consuming nature of revenge is always worth exploring! But latent possibilities are buried here under a contrived script in which all proceedings are manipulated to fall in line with the writer’s ultimate goal, the dialoguebaazi is more amusing than it is hard hitting, and the execution borders on the farcical. So when the heroine goes to jail, she seems to have the services of the best make-up artists and manicurists at her disposal. When she has to decipher corporate files, her photographer ex-colleague (Nikhil Dwivedi) most conveniently transforms into a finance wiz who can analyse those papers at a glance. And Daddy Dhanrajgir knows his son is destroying his business empire for vendetta, but he stands by and watches for a little above two hours, before he washes his hands of Sid. Arrey, if he’d intervened before that, how would the film have got completed?!

Incidentally, Nikhil and Gulshan Devaiah (as Siddharth Dhanrajgir) prove here that good actors sometimes manage to rise above banal scripts. Nikhil was noticeable in Mani Ratnam’s otherwise dull Raavan and in 2011’s little gem Shor In The City. Gulshan played a loose cannon to good effect in Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitan (2011). In Hate Story he seamlessly metamorphoses from the fellow who stammers helplessly when he addresses his father to the ruthless, supremely confident bastard that he is with the rest of the world. Both men deserve better than this film.

As for the much-talked-about sex scenes in Hate Story … well, they’re way more explicit than what we’re used to seeing from Bollywood. And they’re not C-grade-style sleazy. But Paoli’s attempts to portray a steaming hot seductress are more laughable than sultry, the combined effect of ineffective acting and poor writing! Look no further than the scene in which she prances around the wet lawn of a politician’s house on a rainy day, spouting tacky dialogues steeped in puns to seduce him into appointing her to a top position in a bank.

Strange thing is that neither she nor director Vivek Agnihotri need have looked far for reference points. After all, Hate Story is produced by Vikram Bhatt who directed Raaz in which Bipasha Basu redefined “sexy” for Indian audiences.

Hate Story is not erotica as the publicity would have us believe. It’s a sad attempt at it!

Rating (out of five): * (For Nikhil Dwivedi and Gulshan Devaiah, and because I’ve seen far far worse. Don’t believe me? Click here for proof.)

CBFC Rating:                      A
Language:                            Hindi

Lead photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_Story