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 625: VISHWAROOP 2

Release date:	August 10, 2018
Director:	Kamal Haasan
Cast: Language:	Kamal Haasan, Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar, Shekhar Kapur, Rahul Bose, Jaideep Ahlawat, Waheeda Rahman, Russell Geoffrey Banks  Hindi

(Note: This film was shot simultaneously with the same cast in two languages, and has been released as Vishwaroopam II in Tamil and Vishwaroop II in Hindi. Here is my review of the Hindi version, Vishwaroop II.)

When Kamal Haasan is good, he is so good that he has the ability to transport the viewer to another realm. From a boy in a forbidden relationship in K. Balachander’s Apoorva Raagangal (1975) to the country bumpkin in love with the only educated girl in his village in Bharathiraja’s 16 Vayathinile (1977), and the bitter, brooding, idealistic unemployed youth whose scintillating chemistry with the great Sridevi scorched the screen in Balachander’s Varumaiyin Niram Sivappu (1980), over the years he has invested himself in some wonderful roles in wonderful films – mostly in Tamil, some in Telugu – with directors who had a significant point to make.

There is not enough space here for an exhaustive list of Haasan’s best works, but it will remain one of life’s eternal questions why this artistic giant has wasted so much of the past 30 years on gimmicky films instead of devoting himself entirely to the raw, soul-searching performances he is respected for – the sort you will not find in his latest venture.

Vishwaroop II is the Hindi version of the Tamil Vishwaroopam II, both of which were shot simultaneously with the same actors and are a follow-up to 2013’s Vishwaroopam/Vishwaroop. In the previous film, Wisam Ahmad Kashmiri (Haasan) is leading a double life in New York, as a Kathak teacher who is, in reality, a RAW agent. Nirupama (Pooja Kumar) is bored of her marriage of convenience with this older man until she discovers his truth. Wisam’s encounters with the Al Qaeda terrorist Omar (Rahul Bose) end in the latter’s escape.

Vishwaroop II spends a considerable part of its pre-interval portion recounting what happened in Part 1. This proves to be a drag for those who have seen that film, and while I cannot speak on behalf of those who have not, the flashbacks are so sketchy that I do not see how they could have served the purpose for which they are placed there.

Anyway, in the present day, Wisam, his young protégé Ashmita (Andrea Jeremiah), Colonel Jagannath (Shekhar Kapur) and Nirupama once again run into Omar who is out for revenge against Wisam while also planning a cataclysmic event in the UK that would put 9/11 in the shade. Somewhere between saving the world and himself, Wisam manages to woo his wife and bond with his mother (Waheeda Rahman).

Vishwaroopam II is too ordinary to be worthy of a detailed critique. It makes a fleeting mention of Islamophobia, but in a month that has given us Anubhav Sinha’s brilliant Mulk, that argument, though reasonably well made, is too marginal to merit a discussion. I suppose you could say the crux of the film is to remind us that Haasan at 63 has still got what it takes to be a hero in an all-out commercial film, but all the gravity-defying stunts in the world cannot mask the superficiality of this storyline, the mundaneness of its thriller elements, the lack of a spark between Haasan and Kumar, Ashmita’s irritating effort to imply that she is romantically involved with Wisam (towards which end she even makes a distasteful reference to rape) or the all-round tackiness of the production quality.

For all its failings, at least Vishwaroop had its slick art design (in that dance studio in New York and in Omar’s hideout on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border) going for it, in addition to memorable choreography by Birju Maharaj and impressive fight scenes. Here, the fake studio backdrops at certain places are so glaringly obvious that I wanted to weep at the thought of a legendary thespian even bothering with this project. Yes, I get that Indian films are made at a milli-fraction of the budget available to Hollywood, but so many of our cinematic works look technically rich, including several in Haasan’s own career, that this excuse does not cut ice.

The mediocrity extends to the story, the storytelling, the research, the music and the sound design. In a scene in an assisted living facility, a nurse is shown almost pestering an Alzheimer’s patient to dip into her memory. Even someone with a basic knowledge of Alzheimer’s Disease will tell you that that is an absolute no-no. Elsewhere, in a closed room supposedly in the UK, horns can be heard blaring loudly and incessantly outside – the sound designer appears to have forgotten that constantly honking is a congenital Indian disorder and that the streets of Britain are far calmer than ours. The entire cast’s acting is unremarkable, and the women in particular are mere appendages to Wisam. Jeremiah is attractive and agile while walloping a villain, but does not have enough such scenes in the film.

The low point of Vishwaroop II is the terrible singing of a number titled Tu srotu hai by Haasan, Kaushiki Chakraborty and Karthik Suresh Iyer. While Haasan shouts in places to camouflage his struggle to sing, Chakraborty and Iyer screech when the pitch goes high.

Sadly, Haasan has no one to blame but himself for this misadventure since he is the producer, director and writer (the dialogues for the Hindi version are by Atul Tiwari).

I love Kamal Haasan. I do. I was a kid when I cried for his character Raja as he assured his best friend that he was not in love with her in Ramesh Sippy’s Saagar (1985), one of the few Hindi films he did that I thought deserved him. I laughed till I died at his antics in the dialogueless Pushpak Vimana (1987). And just recently, when he stepped into Mohanlal’s role in Papanasam (2015), the Tamil remake of the Malayalam blockbuster Drishyam starring Lalettan, he did indeed remind us that he still has what it takes to play the leading man in an all-out commercial film without the crutch of a double role, a triple role, 10 roles, a lover who looks young enough to be his child, a heavy use of prosthetics or excessive reliance on an action director that have been the USPs of too many of his films from the 1990s onwards. All he needs to do is stay as nicely physically fit as he is now, rely on his tremendous acting talent, pick dependable directors and solid scripts. Maybe someone needs to write a mystery thriller on why the iconic Kamal Haasan does not get that.

Apart from the shock value of the extreme violence it features and a vital statement about fundamentalism-versus-education, Vishwaroop II has nothing new to offer. It is a scar on Haasan’s filmography and a dead bore.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	2 hours 21 minutes

Footnote about the Censor rating: A UA rating makes no sense considering the nature of the violence in the film. Among other disturbing visuals, Vishwaroop II shows us repeated close-ups of gory wounds, daggers piercing eyes and necks, and a lingering shot of a man whose throat has just been smashed with a fist. While you cannot help but wonder whether it helped the film that the Censor Board chief is its lyricist, to be fair, this rating is in keeping with the hypocrisy of India’s film rating system which has for long now deemed violence, sexual innuendo, sexism, extreme misogyny including rape jokes and casual assaults on women in male-centric, big-banner commercial projects UA-worthy, while explicit depictions of sex between consenting adults are usually given A (Adults Only) certificates. More recently, with Veere Di Wedding, we saw the CBFC stamping an A rating on women just talking about sex and masturbating. 

For more on this, you could read my column headlined “Consistently Inconsistent” written in 2015 – nothing has changed since then:

https://annavetticadgoes2themovies.blogspot.com/2015/05/indias-film-censorship-system-film.html

A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/vishwaroop-ii-movie-review-kamal-haasan-wastes-himself-in-an-extraordinarily-ordinary-thriller-4934631.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishwaroopam_II

REVIEW 334: DIL DHADAKNE DO

Release date:	June 5, 2015
Director:	Zoya Akhtar
Cast: Language:	Anil Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Priyanka Chopra, Shefali Shah, Rahul Bose, Zarina Wahab, Anushka Sharma, Farhan Akhtar, Aamir  Khan, Ridhima Sud, Vikrant Massey Hindi

’Tis the season for an unconventional take on relationships in Bollywood. Just weeks after director Shoojit Sircar’s Piku came to theatres with the story of an exasperating father and his indulgent daughter, Zoya Akhtar brings us Dil Dhadakne Do (DDD) which revolves around a philandering opportunist, his doormat of a wife who is too hypocritical or perhaps too lethargic to shake him off, and the two children they’re both bent on suffocating. The standard term for such folk these days is “dysfunctional family”, but that begs the question: which family is not?

Anil Kapoor in DDD plays Kamal Mehra, an industrialist keeping up the appearance of wealth with an extravagant lifestyle even as his company teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. He cheats on his wife Neelam (Shefali Shah) who too is obsessed with maintaining a façade of happiness. Both prioritise this outward show and the survival of the business over even their kids’ welfare.

Matters come to a head on a 10-day cruise to Europe organised for relatives and friends to mark the Mehras’ 30^th wedding anniversary, with the children – Ayesha (Priyanka Chopra) and Kabir (Ranveer Singh) – rebelling against their oppressive, dictatorial parents. For the record, Ayesha is a successful businesswoman in her own right, living in Mumbai with her husband Manav Sangha (Rahul Bose) and mother-in-law (Zarina Wahab), while Kabir works for his father’s company and lives in the family home in Delhi.

From her very first film, Zoya Akhtar has shown a penchant for a naturalistic style of storytelling. Events in both Luck By Chance and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara flowed at what felt like a pace that mirrors real life, without contrived attempts at twists and turns to heighten the melodrama. Ms Akhtar is part of a small but expanding band of Bollywood film makers whose works remind us that drama is intrinsic to all relationships and there is no need to artificially up the ante for effect. DDD follows the same route, with just one difference: a crazy, slightly silly (and confusing) climax that appears improbable on the face of it, but is so clearly deliberately designed to unapologetically be what we call “filmi” that I suppose it works as a kinda sorta cheery ode to conventional Bollywood madness. 

At almost 171 minutes, DDD is longer than most Hindi films are these days. It is to the credit of Akhtar and the pace she sets from the word go, that not one of those is a minute of flab. Each member of the film’s star-studded cast – including supporting players Anushka Sharma, Farhan Akhtar, Rahul Bose and Zarina Wahab – and every single character get their due, without the effort to do justice to them appearing heavy-handed in any way. Even the narrator Pluto Mehra works for the most part, not counting one somewhat preachy portion where he discusses differing social attitudes towards men and women who sleep around. But you know what, when you are that huggable, you are allowed one passing slip-up.

Aiding the director in maintaining her engaging narrative is the superlative cast. Anil is superb while striking a fine balance that calls for him to be despicable yet hard to hate. It is a challenging role but he plays it as if it is who he really is. God bless this era in Bollywood when a senior actor of his stature can get the role of a hero in a film without having to degrade himself by playing a character much younger than his real-life age.

When a veteran is on a roll, it’s tough to avoid being overshadowed, but Ranveer manages that feat, delivering a remarkably controlled and nuanced performance as Kabir. It helps that he has an incredibly appealing screen presence which he puts to good use here. This is a young man who is both a born actor and a born star. 

The story belongs to these two gentlemen, not because they get more screen time – they do not – but because they have more interesting, layered characters. Despite the disadvantage, Shefali and Priyanka shine as conflicted women, although it requires a considerable suspension of disbelief to digest a 42-year-old Shefali playing Mom to actors who are 29 (Ranveer) and 32 (PC). Can you imagine a male star of the same age – say, John Abraham – playing father to those two?! In MCP Bollywood, even in a liberal story like this one, that would be unthinkable!

The most charming, endearing relationship in this film filled with relationships is the brother-sister bond. Kabir and Ayesha’s unflinching support for each other and perfect understanding of each other is enough to warm the stoniest heart. It is also nice to see two major mainstream stars playing siblings rather than a romantically involved couple. The last time I remember that happening was with Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai in Mansoor Khan’s Josh.

That casting decision is one of many reasons why DDD is an unconventional Bollywood film. Another is that it has four leads – the family quartet – and none is given more importance than the other. DDD is also that rare Hindi film with an ensemble cast. Among the many exciting actors in smaller roles are debutant Ridhima Sud and TV’s Vikrant Massey (from Balika Vadhu among other serials) who earlier played Ranveer’s friend in Lootera. The two make their mark as offspring of warring families who are among the Mehras’ invitees on their anniversary cruise.

In its own way, DDD is also a gentle slap in the face of misogynists who stereotype feminists as being: (a) only women and (b) people who overlook the flaws of women. Quite to the contrary, the two great feminists of this film are Kabir and Sunny, Ayesha’s old flame played by Farhan. While Kamal Mehra and Manav Sangha are skewered for lording it over their wives, the women are not let off for allowing themselves to be manipulated when they had a choice to do otherwise.

I wanted to applaud – actually, I did – when Kabir calls out his mother’s cowardice in pretending that she was unaware of her husband’s affairs. It reminded me of Amitabh Bachchan’s character Bhaskor in Piku pointing out to his sister-in-law that her frustrations about her life of professional non-achievement were her fault since it was she who chose – despite Bhaskorda’s encouragement and cooperation – not to take up a job which offered her a pay higher than her husband’s salary. Let us not forget that patriarchy survives on the collaboration of such women.

Another noteworthy aspect of DDD is the absence of community stereotyping. The Mehras are Punjabis but hey look Bollywood – they do not yell “Balle balle” or break into the Bhangra at the drop of a hat. Imagine that!

Of course there is a tiny bit of gender stereotyping elsewhere: the gossips in the film are all women, their men are never shown gossipping. C’mon Zoya, you know better than that!

Music directors Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy deliver a relevant and pulsating background score although a majority of the songs in DDD are disappointingly tuneless. Pehli Baar is the only somewhat memorable melody of the lot.

Oddly enough, despite this I enjoyed all the songs within the framework of the film because they fit the situations in which they come up and because the choreography is thoroughly enjoyable, atypical Bollywood. Particularly worth mentioning are the Broadway-style Girls like to swing featuring a cute-as-a-button Anushka who reminded me of Renee Zellwegger in Chicago and the infectious energy of Gallan Goodiyaan in which the entire supporting cast – yes all of them – throw themselves into the dancing with a joie de vivre that is irresistible. Who knew that Rahul Bose and Parmeet Sethi could swing like that? You go, boys! And what a joy to see a grey-haired Anil dancing wildly in that same song.

DDD is not faultless, but barring that nutty ending, I had a rollicking good time watching it because it is funny, believable and sweet, the cast is lovely and most of all, because now that I’ve seen it, I’ve fallen in love with both Ranveer Singh and Anil Kapoor.

Rating (out of five): ***1/2

PS: Good job with the guest appearance, Aamir.

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	171 minutes

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dil_Dhadakne_Do