Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Recently Watched: from Bollywood

This time of the year has been very hectic for the last three years for me. I have been busy these days preparing for my final MBBS exam and hopefully these will be the last of those. Well, alongwith the exhaustive studies these days, as usual, movies haven't quite dried up for me. Every such time, frequency of my watching movies are quite high and this time it is simply at the top level in my lifetime till date. Movies almost at a rate of 1.5 movies for past 20 days or so are in no way infrequent. The variety of movies is also quite staggering that includes both Hindi and English movies, both first-timers and revised, of varied jenres and well of completely different moods. This post will be about some of the Hindi ones.

Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani
: There is no particular reason to start with this very film. Anyways, this is a kiddish comedy directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi who holds the credit of seriously serious films like Damini, Ghayal, Ghatak, Lajja etc and for him to direct this comedy was a bit strange. Having said this, one is compelled to remeber Andaaz Apna Apna by him too and what a comedy that was. There was something common in between 'Andaaz...' and 'Ajab...'. The kind of comedy in both these films are quite similar, you go, you watch, don' think much, and just enjoy. Being somewhat kiddish no doubt, it was completely different from the kind of comedy being served to us these days by films like No Entry or Partner or Golmaal (of course the Ajay Devgan version) and Golmaal Returns. Today, mostly what we are getting in the name of comedy is a bunch of non-veg jokes with sexuality at its central theme. At such a time, APKGK brings us a refreshing, clean, with-the-family, cartoonish comedy which, as far as I am concerned, I enjoyed completely. So, not highly recommended but easily tolerable.

Ardh Satya: It is quite strange for even me to follow APKGK with this Govind Nihalani directed 1983 masterpiece starring Om Puri and Smita Patil. The two films are literally antonyms to each other in each and every respect. Where APKGK is a sheer comedy, this one is a damn serious movie. Being a well decorated film from India's golden era of parallel cinema, this has to be special. Its about the internal conflicts of the protangonist both as a police officer and as a human being. I won't deny the fact that there were some parts of the movie that I was not able to understand completely, yet overall, I could make out of it that this has to be one highly recommended movie for everybody. The story, the direction, the dialogues, the performances everything is just perfect. One special mention to Om Puri's performance, HATS OFF to you sir!!!

Sarfarosh: After already having watched it so many times, I still went up for it and was as overwhelmed as I was 10 yrs back when I first watched it. Personally speaking, this movie is something special for me. It gave me my superstar in form of Aamir Khan. I watched it, I liked it, I became his fan and I still am.

Black and White: Just a random selection, was on my too-watch list for quite some time. A strange movie, only this is what I have to say about it, a strange movie! Never expected Subhash Ghai to direct such a film. I knew that this film was his production but after watching it completely I rechecked for the director and found it to be Mr. Ghai himself. Well, this is about a suicidal terrorist attack. So many movies have been made on this topic now and this one is not different except it has no "दूध मांगोगे खीर देंगे कश्मीर मांगोगे चिर देंगे" kind of offensive dialogues against Pakistan and it has no "कोई माँ की कोख से आतंकवादी बन कर नही पैदा होता" kind of cliched concept. All in all, a good one!!!

Shaurya: Where having Rahul Bose in the lead role is enough for anybody to expect a high class performance, if you are given alongwith him Kaykay Menon and a serious version of Javed Jafffey, it had to be fantastic performance-wise. Again, recommended!!!

Haasil: I thought not to write about it yet I am doing this because this needs one special mention. I have not felt a more drastic transition of my feelings for a movie from more than very good to extremely bad as I felt with this one. After such a promising half an hour of student politics, it suddenly changes into a dirty game of love and lust and even good performances from Ashutosh Rana, Irrfaan or Jimmy Shergill couldn't save this one.

Alongwith these movies there were several others that I watched but I don't really feel like writing this time. Maybe some other time, I might be writing but here a passing mention of their names:
Sorry Bhai, Bawarchi, Jashnn, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Mithya, Wanted, No Entry, Bandit Queen etc.

Disclaimer: I have not written about these movies doesn't mean that I didn't like them. Some of them, I really liked and others were just useless.