REVIEW 682: MILAN TALKIES

Release date:	March 15, 2019
Director:	Tigmanshu Dhulia
Cast: Language:	Ali Fazal, Shraddha Srinath, Reecha Sinha, Ashutosh Rana, Rajeev Gupta, Deepraj Rana, Sikander Kher, Sanjay Mishra Hindi

Love across social barriers and parental opposition is a theme as old as the hills in Bollywood. Instead of merely revisiting it though, as generations before him have done, writer-director Tigmanshu Dhulia chooses to use it as a hook to pay tribute to his beloved Bollywood and to Allahabad. It is a challenging task since, sometimes, there is only a fine line between recycling and an ode. In his hands though, for the most part that line is thick, firmly drawn and distinctive, with immensely entertaining results.

Dhulia (Haasil, the Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster series, Paan Singh Tomar, Raag Desh) and his co-writer Kamal Pandey place Milan Talkies’ heroine in a conservative Brahmin clan in the pilgrim city. Her fiance is from an educated family, so Maithili a.k.a. Janak Kumari (Shraddha Srinath) is required to pass her college exams before the marriage can take place. Towards this end, her uncle (Rajeev Gupta) hires the resourceful, morally ambiguous Aniruddh Sharma a.k.a. Annu (Ali Fazal) to help her cheat her way to success.

When he is not illegally sourcing university exam papers for the student populace, Annu is preparing to be a Bollywood director by making a film with his limited resources and local talent. The two youngsters meet, sparks fly, and what follows is love, rebellion and mayhem.

The film’s title goes beyond being just a reference to a theatre the couple frequent for their meetings away from prying eyes. Every word, line and shot in Milan Talkies is a bow to classic Hindi cinema, its everlasting beauty and even its clichés. Mughal-e-Azam gets pride of place in the narrative, in a goosebump-inducing scene that could draw a tear from the eye of a committed cineaste. Elsewhere, Sanjay Mishra’s character stands framed by a window with a poster of Pakeezah behind him, as he leans down on the sill and looks in on Maithili who is seated languidly in the adjoining room. 

DoP Hari Vedantam’s work shows a passion for Bollywood that parallels Dhulia’s obvious love for it. The Holi song once mandatory in Hindi films, the chase across rail tracks, the escape on a train – they all find a spot here, without trivialising this film industry and, for the most part, without making light of the disturbing social scenario on which Milan Talkies trains its spotlight.

Contemporary Hindi filmmakers seem by turns indifferent to caste, ignorant of it or afraid of open discussions about it, as evidenced most recently by Dhadak, the tepid Hindi remake of the Marathi blockbuster Sairat. Dhulia, however, shows no fear in highlighting the self-defeating egotistical nature of brahminical patriarchy. Here though, his apparent keenness to pay obeisance to Hindi cinema gets the better of him briefly as the plot of Milan Talkies suddenly and uncharacteristically echoes the romanticisation of benevolent patriarchy so famously done by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) in 1995.

(Spoiler alert) The difference between the two films lies in the fact that “Ja Simran, ja jee le apni zindagi” (Go live your life, Simran) was the culmination of a thread running right through the deeply regressive though beautifully packaged DDLJ, which was from start to finish the story of a man determined not to marry the woman he loves without her father’s permission, whereas Milan Talkies is until that point and even after it an all-out snub to such nonsensical traditionalism. The scene in which Annu unexpectedly becomes intent on Maithili’s “gharwaalon ki marzi" (her family’s consent) is a complete break for his character and for the film itself which had, until then, given her agency in the most trying circumstances. (Spoiler alert ends)

The return to no-holds-barred defiance right after that scene hopefully means that that moment of inconsistency in the script was more a misstep on the part of the writers rather than a sign of lack of commitment to non-conformism. Either way, it does manage to subtract from the resonance of the song that follows shortly, written by the brilliant Amitabh Bhattacharya: “Dhat teri teri zamaana / humko tthenga fikar / apna bheja hai tamancha / dil hai pressure cooker.” (In short: To hell with you, society / we care a fig about you.)

Still, the energy, insightfulness and sense of humour in everything that came before it is so impactful that three-quarters of the battle has already been won by then. (There is a needless comment on mardaangi in another part of the film, which again is incongruous in the face of its overall gender politics.)

Dhulia and Pandey manage to bring Allahabad alive in Milan Talkies with affection, a funny bone and yet no ambiguity about its failings. The music by Rana Mazumder and Akriti Kakar is brimming with infectious verve, that is perfectly balanced out with the challenges in Maithili's situation in particular. This is epitomised by the tension Dhulia manages to whip up around her in a world where even the simple act of watching a film could be rife with danger for a young woman, despite which there are admirable individuals who manage to break out.

Holding this enterprise together along with the director are his top-notch cast. Each one is in spiffing form but a special mention must be made of Dhulia himself whose ease with comedy as he plays Annu’s father in Milan Talkies is a reminder of how undervalued he is as an actor.

Ali Fazal is by now an old hand, equally undervalued by Bollywood despite his engaging personality and acting capabilities.

Debutant Shraddha Srinath who plays Maithili is a find. Her good looks are a bonus, but what truly makes Maithili work is the manner in which she slips into the character’s tricky mix of combustibility and sweetness without allowing the effort to show.

Maithili is one of Goddess Sita’s names. Mythology tested this woman unjustly and in ways that are beyond the endurance of any normal human being. In Dhulia’s Allahabad in the 2010s, she is still being forced to walk through fire simply for the right to live a normal life and be happy. Milan Talkies is lots of fun, but there is so much more to it than meets the eye.

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	141 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/milan-talkies-movie-review-tigmanshu-dhulia-recasts-ddlj-as-a-tribute-to-bollywood-and-social-rebellion-6272601.html

Poster courtesy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Talkies

174: SAHEB BIWI AUR GANGSTER RETURNS

Release date:	March 8, 2013
Director:	Tigmanshu Dhulia
Cast: Language:	Jimmy Sheirgill, Mahie Gill, Irrfan, Soha Ali Khan, Rajeev Gupta, Raj Babbar, Deepraj Rana, Pravesh Rana Hindi

At one point in Saheb Biwi aur Gangster Returns, a slimy politician tries desperately to switch off his laptop on which a porn film is loudly playing. Gasps and moans emanate from the screen as he struggles to turn off the film even as a journalist enters his office. Don’t look, the neta tells the bemused visitor... If ever there was a single scene that could encapsulate a writer-director’s skill, it is this. Rajeev Gupta as the politico is brilliant, so is Irrfan as the visitor. Nothing about this scene is over-stated which is what makes it even funnier than it might have been in exaggerated form. And in the deftness with which he delivers this understated hilarity, Tigmanshu Dhulia – SBAG Returns’ director and co-writer – proves yet again why he is one of the best talents of contemporary Bollywood.

And so Dhulia is back with Saheb (Jimmy Sheirgill), Biwi (Mahie Gill) and a new Gangster (Irrfan as Indrajeet Singh) in this delightful sequel to the engaging Saheb Biwi aur Gangster of 2011. SBAG Returns begins where the first film left off: Aditya Pratap Singh a.k.a. Saheb is the violence-prone, arrogant though cash-strapped scion of an erstwhile royal family in small-town India, turning to electoral politics in an effort to hold on to the power his ancestors once wielded. Following the developments of the first film, he is now confined to a wheelchair, struggling to cope with his disability and the awareness that his wife Madhavi Devi is not the pliable partner-in-crime or doormat he would have liked her to be. Madhavi is still an alcoholic, still emotionally unstable and still bitter about her husband’s wandering eye. That eye wanders in this film towards a rival raja’s daughter Ranjana (Soha Ali Khan) who happens to be the one true love of Indrajeet. Ranjana becomes a pawn in a power game between these rajas of yore whose political and personal battles get inextricably intertwined through the film.

Dhulia and editor Rahul Shrivastava sustain an absorbing pace almost throughout SBAG Returns, making this a highly entertaining watch. If Randeep Hooda was the pick of an excellent cast in Part 1, then here the honours go to Irrfan who makes evil attractive and manages to lend charm even to his awkward love making. About that love making though, it must be said that Soha seems to have considerable reservations about exposure and sexual explicitness, which becomes painfully evident in the bedroom encounter between Ranjana and Indrajeet. One of the pluses of SBAG1 was the gay abandon with which Mahie and Randeep threw themselves into their very wild sexcapades; neither the actors nor the camera were pussyfooting around the matter, thus giving us some of the most extensive and most tastefully torrid sex scenes ever seen in a Bollywood film. In SBAG Returns though, it’s Soha’s hesitation, not her character’s sexual reticence that we seem to see on screen in a very brief scene.

Jimmy and Rajeev Gupta deliver wonderful performances that make you yearn for more meaty roles for both actors in more films. Mahie too ably carries forward the chameleon-like transformations of Madhavi Devi from SBAG. If there is a weak link in this chain it’s the characterisation of Ranjana by the writers (story: Dhulia and Kamal Pandey; screenplay and dialogues: Dhulia) and Soha’s inadequate performance of this character. When she changes her goals so dramatically mid-stream, her motivations for doing so needed to go beyond the hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned cliché to be convincing. (It was a challenge writing that sentence without spoilers; if it sounds obtuse now, do re-read it after you see the film.) Elsewhere there is some detailing that should have been taken care of. The very Anglicised Ranjana’s casualwear may have been acceptable to her father (Raj Babbar) but seems out of place in the home of her outrageously conservative, patriarchal beau. And in a song featuring Anjana Sukhani, in a scene featuring a miserable Ranjana, the editor throws in a long shot of a brightly smiling Ranjana dancing with her co-stars between shots of her morose face in the same group. Since Ranjana is crucial to the proceedings, none of this can be ignored ... so it’s a good thing that the film’s gripping momentum and crisp dialogues are designed to lull us into a forgiving mood.

Rakesh Ranjan’s sound design in SBAG Returns deserves a special mention. If you enter the hall knowing well that there’s a possibility of guns going off all around, yet find yourself (like I was) getting startled at every single bullet fired, you know the audiographer is doing everything right. Equally worth mentioning is the effective use of Sandeep Chowta’s background score to build up the tension in the film; the songs, on the other hand, are not up to the mark.

The decaying havelis, the remnants of grandeur in the formal costumes, the choice of locations all contribute to building up the ominous atmosphere of desperation in the lives of these former rajas. The many allusions to our current political scenario are just as enjoyable: like the state that’s on the verge of being split, not in the interests of the people but of the politicos who want that division; like the politician who wants his wife to be a mere front for him; like the Machiavellian moves before a crucial vote in a state assembly; the presence of a Raja Bhaiyya in the story; and of course, the porn-watching politician.

It’s such a joy to be able to say this in a Bollywood that rarely makes good sequels … Saheb Biwi aur Gangster was a fun political thriller; SBAG Returns is even better.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	145 minutes

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Me_Aur_Main    

Watch the trailer on Viacom18’s official youtube channel:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFyQTtD6BzM&list=PLFlTp4DOxUfNfq7CNWGEglB7SLGIH3b_6