REVIEW 358: ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES

Release date:	December 4, 2015
Director:	Pan Nalin
Cast: Language:	Sarah-Jane Dias, Anushka Manchanda, Pavleen Gujral, Sandhya Mridul, Rajshri Deshpande, Amrit Maghera, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Arjun Mathur, Adil Hussain, Anuj Choudhary Hindi, English

Through years of watching Hindi films, I’ve experienced a lump in my throat each time I’ve listened to Jai and Veeru sing Yeh dosti hum nahin thodenge, invested myself in the gentlemen buddies from Dil Chahta Hai, Rock On, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Kai Po Che, laughed and wept with those 3 idiots. Yet this week’s release, Angry Indian Goddesses, comes as such a joyous relief.

Can it possibly be true? Are we really seeing seven female Indian human beings on the big screen, hanging out together, talking, doubling up with laughter, fighting, crying, partying, sharing secrets and forming new equations?

This is that rare Indian film featuring a group of real women – women who could be you and me – bonding, responding to what life throws at them and living.

Angry Indian Goddesses comes to theatres in the wake of a laughable run-in with India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Among other things, the Board compelled the director to mute out swear words – even after handing him an A certificate – and the word “sarkar” (government) from a conversation in which the heroines are discussing government interference in the private lives of citizens. Strangest of all though is the directive to blur pictures of Hindu goddesses, although the divine imagery in the film celebrates the strength of its women.

A pity. Because despite an off-putting sell-out through one plot element and an inexcusable instance of factual carelessness, Angry Indian Goddesses is a pathbreaking film filled with humour, realism, tragedy and, ultimately, hope.

The setting is Goa where former magazine photographer Frieda (Sarah-Jane Dias) has invited her best friends from across the country. They are top corporate honcho Suranjana (Sandhya Mridul), musician Madhurita (Anushka Manchanda), Pammi (Pavleen Gujral) who is a housewife, the activist Nargis (Tannishtha Chatterjee) and Freida’s half-Indian cousin, Bollywood aspirant Joanna (Amrit Maghera). Suranjana is accompanied by her little daughter. The group’s constant companion is Freida’s housemaid Lakshmi (Rajshri Deshpande).

Right from the opening montage of the women before they gather at Freida’s home, it is clear that this film will be feisty, fiery and funny, all rolled into one – just like its leading ladies.

The pace of those initial scenes, the deliberately raised decibel levels, the blistering anger of the protagonists, the comedy that is inherent in many of life’s bizarrely appalling situations and a touch of hyperbole are all woven together in a flawlessly edited, disturbing yet hilarious few minutes. Though this mosaic is a contrast to the understated nature of the rest of the film, its flaming fury still manages to set the tone for what is to come.

Gujarat-born, Paris-and-Mumbai-based writer-director Pan Nalin has adopted a naturalistic style for the rest of his narrative. Along with his co-writers Dilip Shankar, Subhadra Mahajan and Arsala Qureishi, he has also ensured that his characters are credible and speak a language that real people speak. The film begins with endless natter among the women as they bond over their many painful and amusing experiences, before a calamity freezes the smiles on their lips.

The cast is talented and uniformly relaxed before the camera. Hats off to the casting director (Dilip Shankar again) for seeing in former beauty queen Sarah-Jane Dias something more than the gorgeousness that was the sole focus of her first Hindi film role, in 2011’s deadbeat Game. She is a revelation here. Pavleen Gujral and theatre artiste Rajshri Deshpande are both blazing balls of fire. Singer Anushka Manchanda – long legs, striking face and familiar husky voice in tow – delivers a nuanced performance. And the ever-dependable Sandhya Mridul is brilliant.

Since violence – verbal and/or physical – is an intrinsic part of every woman’s life, it goes without saying that our leading ladies are no different. In the past, when Indian cinema has addressed violence against women, it has usually turned the spotlight entirely on the aggression rather than on the women coping with it.

Likewise, films in the past have often adopted an impractical, undesirable recommendatory tone towards women responding to brutality with premeditated brutality. Cases in point: Zakhmi Aurat in Hindi (1988) and 22 Female Kottayam in Malayalam (2012).

Angry Indian Goddesses does not do either of the above. At no point does it define its heroines solely by the difficulties they encounter as women. In fact the dominant memory from the film is of their constant chatter, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes ruminative, sometimes grave. When they do suffer assault and one of them explodes, the treatment of the explosion gives it a far more credible feel than a plot summary might suggest.

In a cinematic scenario where most films are made with an eye on the male audience, it is an act of valour to make one which insists on being entertaining notwithstanding its grim elements, rather than issue-based, which is what women-centric films are expected to be. Since Angry Indian Goddesses sticks its neck out thus, it is particularly disappointing to spot its big sell-out.

Spoilers Ahead In The Next Three Paragraphs:

At one point in the story, we are introduced to an Indian lesbian couple – one a Muslim NGO type, the other a Christian artistic type. The choice of profession serves to perpetuate a prevailing stereotype that homosexuality exists only among certain classes of people in certain fields (you know, like the “all fashion designers are gay” assumption some people make?), while the choice of religion suggests a play-it-safe strategy considering the violence with which fundamentalists targeted Deepa Mehta’s Fire back in 1998 for portraying two Hindu women as lesbians.

The CBFC got the name of a lead character in Fire changed from Sita to Nita. Still, theatres showing the film were attacked by communalists. A seemingly pre-emptive effort to placate such forces is unexpected from Nalin whose 2001 film Samsara had the courage to be critical of Buddha on behalf of his wife Yashodhara.

This has also led to a gaping loophole in the film: a Catholic priest agrees to get two women married in the story. Fact: the Roman Catholic Church is officially against homosexuality. Even with the present Pope making conciliatory gestures towards the LGBT community, the RC Church in India remains adamant about its position. While there may well be individual Indian priests who are liberals in this matter, the passing mention in this film does not in any way let on that this particular priest must be a mega-rebel who could be thrown out of the Church for his actions. Was this casualness towards facts a bow to the prevailing situation in India where majoritarian groups are aiming at thought control?

Yes seems to be the only plausible answer since it is hard to attribute any of this to lack of awareness from such a well-travelled, experienced filmmaker. This is disheartening, considering the immense bravery Nalin has shown in every other aspect of this film.

It is this bravery that makes Angry Indian Goddesses significant despite its flaws, its climactic song in a church – more melodramatic than the conversational tone of the rest of the film – and an unnecessary epilogue featuring a man mourning the loss of a lover he never had. The film made me wonder at its female leads’ ability to laugh – out loud and a lot – in spite of the crap life doles out to them, a large part of it because of their gender. It got me asking: Why are women not angrier with the world? What a pleasant change it is for an Indian film to raise such a question. And what a pleasant change to see a female dosti film.

Rating (out of five): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	121 minutes

This review has also been published on first post: 

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/angry-indian-goddesses-review-the-films-bravery-makes-it-significant-despite-its-flaws-2533664.html

Photograph courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/AIGtheFilm/

REVIEW 249: RAGINI MMS 2

Release date:	March 21, 2014
Director:	Bhushan Patel
Cast: Language:	Sunny Leone, Saahil Prem, Parvin Dabas, Karan Mehra, Sandhya Mridul, Divya Dutta Hindi

Caveat: There's far less sex in Ragini MMS 2 than the promos would suggest.
In fact, except for this brief girl-on-girl kiss, there's nothing in the film that
mainstream Hindi film audiences have not already seen in Murder,
Yeh Saali Zindagi and Saheb Biwi aur Gangster, in an increasingly
sexually active Bollywood

If you’ve already watched Ragini MMS 2 with the sole goal of seeing soft porn in an Indian theatre, then the joke’s on you. The sequel to 2011’s Ragini MMS has been promoted as a horrex (horror + sex) film, and since porn star Sunny Leone is the lead, expectations are high on that front. Here’s the thing: the film is actually pretty neat in the scares and humour department, but as far as sex goes, well… I can think of several Hindi films that have delivered as much or more bedroom activity in an increasingly sexually active Bollywood.

As consolation I suppose, the camera repeatedly gapes at Leone’s football-sized breasts in teeny clothing – but you could buy posters of her for that, no? In the opening song we get unrelenting overhead shots of her barely-clothed prone body with her hands placed over the nipple area – which is kind of funny since still and moving shots of a nude Leone from every conceivable angle are easily available on the Internet. She wanders around looking fantastic in a tiny tight T-shirt and panties in an abandoned, haunted mansion late at night – which is such an in-your-face effort to titillate that it had the effect of making me giggle in the middle of an otherwise anxiety-inducing scene. And she kisses a girl, and the Censor Board has passed that lip-to-lip girl-on-girl exchange – which is a dramatic new development in the history of Indian film censorship but no big deal for Leone.

The film features just one actual sex scene with the leading lady, and that too doesn’t cross any frontiers beyond what Bollywood has already crossed in the likes of Murder, Yeh Saali Zindagi and Saheb Biwi aur Gangster in recent years. Those who won’t be satisfied with a toned-down version of a pornographic star may prefer to stay at home and google “Sunny Leone videos”. For the rest of you, here’s my review.

Ragini MMS 2 takes off precisely where the first instalment left off. Remember Ragini and her boyfriend had gone off for a sex romp over the weekend to an ancient haveli? He meant to shoot them together in bed and sell the video, but the ghost of the house had other plans. End: the boy is dead and the girl has gone out of her mind.

Fast forward to Film 2 and the renowned director Rocks (Parvin Dabas) is making a film about what happened to Ragini. The heroine of this film-in-a-film is to be played by porn star Sunny (that’s Leone’s character’s name). Also in the picture is the self-obsessed, horny leading man (Karan Mehra), the ambitious supporting actress Monali (Sandhya Mridul), writer Satya (Saahil Prem) and a psychiatrist studying Ragini’s case (Divya Dutta). Kainaz Motivala from the first film makes an appearance as Ragini who is now consigned to a mental asylum. 

Now as you know, it’s the fine tradition of horror films that when a ghost is at large, characters will wander into forests and unlit attics. In Ragini MMS 2, Rocks – on the insistence of the writer – shoots his film in the very house where Ragini and her boyfriend had met their fate. Part of the unit even sets up residence there instead of checking into a hotel.

Logic clearly should not be applied too much though to a film in which a fellow who is making a promotional video about Rocks’ film masturbates on camera in the middle of his own shoot in the haunted house (did he mean to share that footage with TV channels?) and though he’s killed there right at the start, no mention is made of him through the remaining two hours.

What follows is a film with some genuinely startling scenes and a plausible back story, but the effort to turn us on with Leone’s presence ends up diluting what could otherwise have been a solid spookfest. The lady has improved since her Bollywood debut in Jism2, but she can still barely move a muscle on her face. She’s also a rather stiff dancer, unless she’s being asked to stick her booty out at various angles. Still, she has an enviably great body plus she does a good job of one fun scene in which she fakes an orgasm in front of the entire film unit to challenge a fellow who thinks that a porn star would not have any acting abilities.

In fact, what I liked most about Ragini MMS 2 is that Leone’s character takes on anyone in the group who assumes she’s either sexually available or a non-actor simply because she’s a porn queen. The point is clearly directed at audience prejudice too. It’s another matter that the message would have been more impactful if the actor in question actually could act.

Director Bhushan Patel must also be commended for never crossing the line into sleazy territory. Although he serves up generous views of his heroine’s cleavage, the camera does not cheapen her the way it did in Jism 2. In fact, if only he and the writing team had stayed true to the effort to frighten us and if only they’d worked a little more on the strong fundamentals they gave to their paranormal angle, this could have been a much better film.

Unfortunately, like Rocks in Ragini MMS 2, Patel & Co. too seem to have been so taken in by the fact that they had an internationally famous porn star on board, that they got distracted too often from that goal. The result is that though their story has an interesting foundation, instead of developing it to the fullest extent possible, the film ends up dipping into horror clichés and Bollywood formulae towards the end. Nothing illustrates this point better than the finale in which we the audience are just emerging from being scared by the ghost’s shenanigans when, instead of allowing us to hold on to that mood, the screen bursts into the by-now-mandatory-with-the-closing-credits peppy song and dance, featuring Leone shimmying to Yo Yo Honey Singh’s tune. For the record, the songs are uniformly unremarkable.

Still, in the overall analysis, Ragini MMS 2 gets its atmospherics and most of its cast right, it is scary in places and funny elsewhere, the dialogue writing is often clever, and it is not an unintelligent film. Saahil Prem is the kind of actor who makes you curious to see what he might do with a bigger role, Sandhya Mridul is hilarious as a behenji willing to “compro” for her career, and I guess it can be safely said that few women in this world can fake an orgasm as well as Ms Leone. Ragini MMS 2 could have been better but as things stand, given the space it inhabits and the promises it makes, I enjoyed more about it than I did not.

Rating (out of five): **3/4 (stars out of 5)

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	120 minutes

Photographs courtesy: Effective Communication

REVIEW 78: FORCE

Release date:	September 30, 2011
Director:	Nishikant Kamat
Cast:	John Abraham, Genelia D’souza, Vidyut Jamwal, Mohnish Bahl, Sandhya Mridul, Raj Babbar

I was apprehensive as I entered the theatre to watch Force. After all it’s a remake of Gautham Menon’s engrossing 2003 Tamil blockbuster Kaakha Kaakha which starred Surya Sivakumar – who is an adjective unto himself – and the vivacious Jyothika. Could Nishikant Kamat, John Abraham and Genelia D’souza possibly match up?

Before we answer that question, a quick look at the story for those who’ve not seen the original film. Mumbai policeman Yashvardhan (Abraham) believes that his dedication to his work comes from his family-less life: no commitments and no relationships mean he has nothing to fear. Things change when he ends up falling for Maya (D’souza) in spite of himself. Meanwhile, on a parallel track, a specialised task force headed by Yash invites the wrath of drug lord Vishnu whose brother they’d killed. Force takes us through Vishnu’s quest for revenge against the quartet while their personal lives play out in the background.

To answer the question on the minds of all Tamil film buffs: yes, Force is a very faithful re-telling of Kaakha Kaakha. In fact, one major irritant for me came in the form of the writing credits which read “Story by Ritesh Shah, inspired by the Tamil film Kaakha Kaakha”.  Oh c’mon, so if I translate Romeo & Juliet into Hindi, would I say “Story by Anna M.M. Vetticad, inspired by William Shakespeare’s English play”?!

I guess it counts as progress that a Hindi film industry more used to blatant lifts is now increasingly being constrained to at least acknowledge its sources, because of greater public awareness and media pressure. With that in mind let’s return to our review. Nishikant Kamat and his action director Allan Amin need to be lauded for the high drama that is Force’s forte. The chases and fights are so well-choreographed that I found myself holding my breath through each one of them. Add to that Harris Jayaraj’s heart-stopping background score, beautiful locations, the ever-reliable Ayananka Bose’s cinematography and Aarif Shaikh’s razor-sharp editing, and what we get is a slick and absorbing cops-and-robbers saga with positives that overshadow its flaws.

Of the able supporting cast, a special mention must go to an interesting new actor called Vidyut Jamwal who plays Vishnu, Mohnish Bahl as Yash’s colleague and Sandhya Mridul as his feisty wife (“go lose your virginity”, she tells Yash on his wedding day). In fact, the camaraderie between the policemen, their wives and girlfriends is quite touchingly potrayed.

The film’s weakest link is the casting of its heroine. Genelia D’souza is a sweet looking girl, but has her limitations as an actress. She also does not have the screen presence to match John Abraham’s charisma which at least in this film required a leading lady who could match the man Centigrade for Centigrade. Abraham himself is no Surya in the acting department, but he is oven hot and there is an inherent sincerity in his personality that’s hard to resist. Interestingly, at 38, his face shows his age but unlike several of his industry colleagues, he looks remarkably and refreshingly un-Botoxed and un-cosmetic-surgeoned – a real man despite that unbelievably unreal hot bod. Besides, Kamat is wise enough to play on Abraham’s strengths – the charming smile, the warmth, the intensity – and ends up extracting a career best performance from the star.

But where he fails is in summoning up any chemistry between the lead pair. The loveliness of Kaakha Kaakha was in the romance between Surya’s Anbuchelvan and his beloved. When the villain tries to hurt her, Anbuchelvan’s pain was our pain. Jyothika played Maya as a bubbly free spirit, but she avoided crossing the line from cute to cutesy. Abraham and D’souza, however, come across as a torrid-looking dude and a doll, a man and a girl, not an adult couple hopelessly in love. It’s all very sweet to begin with. When Yash spots Maya one night through his rain-spattered windshield, he turns on the wiper to get a clearer view. And D’souza is actually quite appealing in the scene when Maya first tells the reticent Yash that she loves him and later when she’s sexually forward with him. “I want to make love to you,” she tells him, a line Bollywood heroines rarely utter, and when he hesitates to kiss her, she hastily clarifies, “Main under-age nahin hoon!” But post interval, every time Maya appears on screen, the film dips.

Perhaps that’s why Kamat has pared down the romance considerably, throwing it in occasionally between powerful action sequences. Force does not have the emotional resonance of Kaakha Kaakha or this director’s own Mumbai Meri Jaan. But boy oh boy, the action is a killer!!! A beefy policeman lifts a motorbike with his bare hands and flings it on a thug. A lone cop chases an unknown villain unrelentingly one night over cars and bridges, railway tracks and trains, and it feels like they’ll just never stop! A gangster rips the bandage off a policeman’s bullet wound and grinds his wrist into it! A policeman impales a bad guy on a meat hook!  

So then this is a high-adrenaline, action flick that deals with the dilemmas of honest policemen. Interestingly, Yash does believe in letting his fists or bullets do the talking in cases where he knows the law will be silent, but Force is not a justification of police atrocities. Vishnu even tells Yash that he’d never have sought revenge if Yash had allowed the law to take its own course. Equally interestingly, the killing that sparks off Vishnu’s marauding mood is actually an act of self defence. The film has its flaws no doubt … but attention all adrenaline junkies, Force is in town!

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

CBFC Rating:                       U/A without cuts

Running time:                        130 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.forcethemovie.com/